U.S. and Canadian retailers have slashed prices for Research in Motion's PlayBook tablet to $199.

Sales of the PlayBook tablet haven't been stellar and RIM is hoping the discounted price will push sales as the holiday season begins. For a limited time with select retailers, the PlayBook will sell for $199.99 for the 16 Gb version, $299 for the 32 Gb model and $399 for the 64 Gb PlayBook.

The PlayBook, which began selling in April for $499 had piddling sales in its initial run. The device's poor performance and its inability to run Blackberry's secure email service, as well as the calendar and contacts without attaching the device to a Blackberry phone thru Bluetooth hasn't endeared it to customers.

RIM has reported that just sold 200,000 tablets in the most recent financial quarter. It had only sold 500,000 PlayBook units in its initial three-month period. Some analysts have estimated that RIM had an internal target of selling five million units in the first year. The numbers have fallen woefully short of the intended goal.

Even with the discount the PlayBook will have a tough time attracting customers because of the intense competition in the market this season. Cheaper tablets have cropped up to take on Apple's iPad in the market. Amazon's Kindle Fire is priced competitively at $199 and Barnes and Noble's new Nook Tablet is retailing for $249.

Heavily discounting a device did work for Hewlett Packard's poor selling TouchPad tablet. In August the hardware company sold the TouchPad for $99 prompting a surge in demand for the tablet. According to CNET when online reseller newegg.com offered a batch of PlayBooks for $199 over the weekend the tablets quickly sold out.

RIM isn't likely to discontinue making the PlayBook. The tablet runs on the new operating system BBX which RIM is planning to run on its next-generation Blackberry phone out next year. RIM has promised to release a software update that will allow the Playbook to access the email service without linking to a Blackberry phone. The software update will also include the Android app player which will enable the tablet to run Android apps.

There's no word if the discount will also apply to Australian retailers. Harvey Norman did offer the PlayBook on sale for $294 in October. Interested Australian buyers who are travelling in the U.S. or Canada can get the PlayBook in Best Buy, Walmart, Office Depot, Radio Shack and BlackBerry from Wireless Giant Store.