Buy a BlackBerry PlayBook for $249 at Walmart Canada

UPDATE: Now selling for $299 at Future Shop and Best Buy.

This hasn’t been confirmed, but there’s a chance that Walmart Canada has begun quietly selling the 16GB edition of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook for $249—a clean 50% shaving off the full retail price.

Telus and Rogers recently offered the tablet to their employees at a sharp discount but this would mark the first public price slash (aside from RIM’s $100 MasterCard incentive).

If the price drop is true, this is eerily similar to how HP’s TouchPad died: poor sales, then price cuts, then firesale-spurred death. Given that RIM shipped just 200,000 units in Q2—half of analyst estimates, and a substantial decline from Q1—such a move wouldn’t shock many.

Going by only a photo of a reciept, tomorrow will be more telling whether or not the pricetag is official or just a hoax. If you go, let us know either way.