It was a busy weekend for Japanese game retailers and consumers, as the rush to get one of the very first PlayStation 3’s started. As the demand greatly exceeds the currently supply, problems like black market sales cannot be avoided. Also first hands on reports and reviews are availble on the Web - it would seem that Microsoft will have hard time defending the battle ground it has gained, if only Sony can supply the hardware

The CIO has posted a short hands on article about the PS3, and they made a few interesting comments. They were very pleased with the good support of different media types (music, video) and the availability of free High Definition movie trailes - finally something to test your new HD Ready TV with!

The PlayStation 3 will play back MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4 video, which means a lot of the content available on the Internet can be played back on your TV through the PS3. Better yet, you can plug an external hard-disk drive into one of the USB ports on the PS3 and play back videos without having to transfer them to the console’s own hard-disk drive.
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The PS3’s versatility is just going to grow as other uses are found for the console. Especially intriguing is the “Install other OS” option in the menu.

I also had a chance to try out online gaming with a copy of Ridge Racer 7. On launch day afternoon, I did a few laps with players identified by their accounts as being in Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and found smooth sailing. The game allows users to send fixed-text messages to other players, which it automatically translates into the language of the recipient, which is a nice touch.

Source: CIO