Oh dear. With the Xbox 360 set to launch in Japan this year, Sony’s answer has been the SCPH-75000. A new version of the slimline ‘PSTwo’ which has been around for about a year, this one differs in that it comes in a delectable satin finish. It’s probably no coincidence that it looks similar in colour to the published photos of the PS3.

But with production of the slinky little thing already in full swing, Sony’s Quality Assurance people have reported a small hiccup: the console has difficulty playing some titles from Sony’s sizeable back catalogue with full fidelity. People trying to play any one of 40 PSOne games will experience audio skipping, extended save times and hangs. And it gets worse, with a growing list of PS2 games also running less than perfectly. Testing is ongoing, so the number of games could increase, but so far nine games have been identified, among them Tekken 5 and Resident Evil 2!

The problem is apparently linked to a chipset change, and the revelation has cast doubt on Sony’s claims that the PS3, like the PS2 before it, will be fully backwards compatible. Microsoft’s difficulty with making the Xbox 360 fully 'BC' has been well publicised, and Sony have been doing some frantic back-pedalling now too, with spokeswoman Reiko Sakamoto admitting:



Quite a climb-down from the omnipotence-affirming rhetoric we heard around the time of E3.

There are no published plans as yet to bring this new model to Europe, but we’ll bring you details if any are announced, and we’ll be sure to mention whether Sony has seen fit to address the problem further than publishing a list of unplayable games.