The BlackBerry PlayBook price cuts have arrived in the US, without any messing around with gift cards: the tablets now start at $299.99 for 16GB at Best Buy, a $200 discount. The question is whether anyone will care, with the imminent arrival of the new Kindle Fire.

Since the sudden HP TouchPad fire sale, discounts have trickled out on the BlackBerry PlayBook that had us wondering if it would follow the same path. Sales came first for Rogers employees, and then retail shops in Canada.

The day after Amazon announced its $199 Android-based tablet, the Kindle Fire, Best Buy looks eager to get its PlayBook stock moving. If 16GB isn't enough PlayBook for you, the 32GB model is now $399.99 and the 64GB costs $499.99.

The PlayBook was derided on its launch for lacking basic features like a native e-mail and calendar app if customers didn’t have a corresponding BlackBerry phone. RIM has promised that a coming 2.0 software update in October will fix this among other problems, but even with these steep discounts, the tablet is in serious danger of irrelevance.