UPDATE: It's happening!

Perhaps Sony figures it has sold as many copies of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception has it's going to sell at this point because rumor has it that the multiplayer portion of the game is about to hit the freemium market as a free-to-play downloadable title.  Joystiq reports that the PlayStation Blog ever to briefly listed the title as an upcoming release.

According to a post on the official PlayStation Blog detailing upcoming PSN releases, a heading revealed the multiplayer component of the latest Uncharted title would be free-to-play; information found under the apt heading "Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Multiplayer (Free to Play)."

Sending the multiplayer mode out into the world is a smart decision as players who may not have been interested in paying full price for Drake's last PlayStation 3 adventure may be willing to pay a few dollars for expansions and per-purchase weaponry that a free-to-play title can offer.  As you'll recall, Sony teamed with Subway to give away free downloads of the Uncharted 3 multiplayer prior to the full game's release back in 2011 to hype the then-upcoming release, but I imagine that someone at Sony and Naughty Dog was watching those download and play statistics.  I wouldn't be surprised if a revitalized Uncharted 3 freemium multiplayer is the result of someone's analysis of that data and Sony has expressed an interest in offering more free-to-play options on the PlayStation Network.  Everything about this idea makes perfect sense to me.