I think its real. Sony really did (or will) enforce this because Gamespot will do the same soon.

I think its a great move. Sony saturates the market with PS3, knowing full well that its demand is not as high as what they are supplying. They are letting the course of normal economics flow and force equilibrium by lowering the price of the PS3. They do not want to loose money; they are not really losing money. They already lost money. Sony is just trying to reach market equilibrium from an unbalanced market oversupplied with PS3. E3 just, suprisingly, comes along and hopefully help fire up the demand.

This seems like an ingenious move to me...