BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) today said it will stop selling the 16GB version of its tablet PC 'PlayBook'

 “There is more value for our customers in the higher capacity models (32 GB, 64 GB), and as such we have decided to focus our efforts here,” the Waterloo based company said in a statement.

“The 16 GB PlayBook will continue to be available for distributors and retailers while quantities last. We continue to remain committed to the tablet space and the 32 GB and 64 GB models of the BlackBerry PlayBook continue to be available from our distributors and retailers around the world.”

RIM said it will no longer produce the 16 GB version, which retails for $199, compared to the 32 GB at $249 and the 64 GB for $299, and will discontinue the product once inventory at distributors and retailers can be cleared

According to PC MAC, RIM announced the PlayBook in Sept. 2010. The 7 inch tablet included a 1024 by 600 multitouch capacitive display, designed around a dual core, 1 GHz Cortex A9 microprocessor backed by a full gigabyte of RAM. The tablet ran QNX's mobile operating system, as well as HTML5 and Flash, with native hardware support to accelerate the apps further.

The PlayBook hit the market in April 2011, but by October, RIM said it would delay the launch of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 until February 2012. Earlier this year, RIM said it would make its upcoming BB10 operating system available for its PlayBook tablet, but not right away.

The 16GB PlayBook is still listed on blackberry.com for $199. The 32GB will set you back $249, while the 64GB version is $299. That's a far cry from the original pricing of $499, $599, and $699, respectively.