Speculations about a new model of PlayStation 3 have increased with the discovery of some secret documents from Best Buy, which indicate the upcoming arrival in the US of a 40GB, USB-less console, packed with Spiderman 3 on Blu Ray.

Gadget-oriented blog Engadget has come up with a series of secret documents from Best Buy that seem to demonstrate the future inception of a 40GB PlayStation 3 here in the US, starting late October/early November. Priced at $399.99, the new model is allegedly arriving without USB ports and has no backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 games (not even software backwards compatibility).

The news is to be taken with a grain of salt until Sony officially confirms this- and rumor has it that they’ll be doing it on October 12, during a special press conference. Until then, there are some strong arguments in favor of this “dumbed-down” PS3:

1. The FCC filling codenamed CECHG01, which is closely related to CECHA01 and CECH01. What that means is that CECHA01 and CECH01 are the names by which Sony designates the previous two models of PS3, so CECHG01 would indicate the upcoming one.

2. Short history of Sony’s capacity of keeping secrets: even two weeks before this year’s E3 people knew about an envisioned price cut for the console. The same applies for Xbox 360’s $50 price cut operated in August, which was almost certitude a week before the official announcement from Microsoft. The recently unveiled Zune and Apple’s new line of iPods also fit into this category of products whose secrets leak faster than the speed of light.

3. And last, but not least, Sony’s need to position itself better in the mainstream console market, where it doesn’t currently have a competitor for Xbox 360 Premium or the Nintendo Wii