Sony will announce the PS3 Slim, a slimmer version of its PS3 console next week sources have confirmed to Pocket-lint.

Sources close to the product have told us that Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai head of Sony's console division will announce the new hardware version of the PS3 at it's Tuesday evening press conference at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany next week.

The console, which has been rumoured to be coming for some time, will land in shops in time for Christmas in both the UK and the US, and follow the company's history for creating slimmer versions of the console.

Sony has previously sold slimmer versions of the PSone and PS2 in the past.

The news is the latest in a long line of leaks that saw the PSP Go leaked ahead of its announcement at E3 earlier this year.

UPDATE: This has now been officially confirmed by Sony as we reported it would be. The console will come with a 120GB hard drive and be 32% smaller than the current model.

[Thanks to pocket-lint.com]