PS3 Officially Launches in Malaysia, on Sept 20th.

Its finally here, Sony Malaysia have announced that PS3 will be officially sold in Malaysia. It will be launched 10am on Sept 20th at 1U at Ground Floor Highstreet New Wing (that's a popular mall in PJ, locals will know how to get there) and there is even a 24hours Soul Calibur IV tournament before the launch day.

For the launch, Sony Malaysia will be selling a special launch bundle:

80GB PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) Bundle Early Birds Promotion

1 x 80GB PS3™ (CECHK06)
1 x DUALSHOCK 3® Wireless Controller
1 x Soul Calibur IV™ game
1 x Selected PS3™ game (Resistance, Ratchet and Clank Future, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Assassin's Creed)
1 x Custom made PS3™ Tote bag
1 x Soul Calibur IV™ CD holder
Price: RM 1,799

To sweeten the bundle further, Sony Malaysia have generously added special gifts for the first 120 buyers of the PS3 Malaysian bundle, as detailed below:-

1st - 3rd customer - RM 1,000 Sony Cash Voucher
4th - 21st customer - RM 500 Sony Cash Voucher
22nd - 50th customer - RM 300 Sony Cash Voucher
51st - 120th customer - RM 100 Sony Cash Voucher

To facilate for those who wants to be 1st in line, the queue line will be opened at 8am, so plan your day/night well.

And not forgetting those of you who don't ever leave the house, Sony Malaysia have generously made the same PS3 Malaysian bundle available as an online pre-order purchase. The first 20 online buyers will get a bonus Blu-ray movie thrown in. However, details on the online purchase, delivery method and the free Blu-ray movie are not included.

All these details (except for the online pre-order deal) are available from here (http://corp.sony.com.my/3/main.asp).

What this means is that Malaysia will join HK, Singapore and Taiwan as the 4th country to officially have the PS3 (Japan is a whole region as far as PS3 distribution, and its not Asian region). All these while, the PS3s in MY stores are simply parallel imports (usually from Singapore) and the warranty is from the country of origin only. With the launch, Malaysian PS3s can be repaired by Sony service centres in Malaysia itself.

Hopefully, this will lead Sony Malaysia to bring in PS3 games directly as well as any PS3 peripherals and accessories, and that the prices will be cheaper than the parallel imports.

Xbox360 HD DVD prices cut to USD130 each

Microsoft had announced further price reduction of the Xbox360 HD-DVD addon peripheral. With immediate effect (from last week, I was slow in reporting this), you can get it for only USD130 (RM560), down from USD180 previously.

While this latest move will undoubtly save HD DVD from losing the format war (Blu-ray have many exclusive studios, with Warner being the latest to run away from HD DVD to be Blu-ray exclusive), its a good time to invest in one unit if you are wanting to see high defination movies via the Xbox360.

Me? I will stick to my blu-ray playing PS3 for my high def movie fixes.

PS3 Firmware 2.10 is available in US

Firmware 2.1 is out in US. It adds DivX (and xviD) and WMV support to the PS3. Also added are Blu-Ray Profile 1.1 which adds features like Pic-in-Pic capabilities (something HD-DVD have long time ago).

Firmware 2.1 is not yet available for Asian region yet (www.asia.playstation.com) but I am sure it will be there few hours later, so check it again later.

Spiderman 3, the 2 Blu-Ray Disc Special Edition, in MY stores now.

Spiderman 3 (2 discs Special Edition), of the blu-ray flavor, can be found in local video stores now (although you may need to do a bit of walking to find them on shelves). One store indicates the price of the blu-ray set at RM179.00.

Happy hunting.

Spiderman 3 DVD and VCD out in Malaysian stores later today.

Spiderman 3 will be released to Malaysian stores today, available on standard def DVD and VCD version. It is unclear which DVD version (or contents) will the stores gets, as the shipments is due to arrive in stores later this evening. No mention of cost either.


There are three standard def DVD versions for the US market (Region One DVD), so I am speculating that the Asian version (Region Three DVD) will contain similar content: -



The single disc version - with bloopers, picture galleries and two commentary tracks.






2-Disc Special Edition - same as the single disc, with additional 11 featurettes in the second DVD. Available in high def blu-ray double disc version too.





The 3 DVD disc pack (highly unlikely) containing all three Spiderman movies in 3 DVD in one pack. Available in high def blu-ray versions too.







Incidentally, the US release of the DVD and Blu-ray of Spiderman 3 sets is scheduled for Oct 30, 2007, so this is a nice early surprise for the Asian region. Please take note that the blu-ray versions of Spiderman 3 is not coming out today, and no news of when it will be here.

New Blu-ray movies available.

There are new blu-ray movies titles to be found in some video stores around KL (Wega Enterprise in Sungei Wang is one of them).

New titles available are:-

300
Ghost Rider
Casino Royale
Shooter
Black Hawk Down
Underground Evolution
Pearl Harbor
The Fifth Element
Kung Fu Hustle (US version with Cantonese)

Elsewhere in 1U, more titles showed up:-

Superman Returns
Pirates of the Caribbeans (1 and 2)
The Departed
(and many more)...

Check out the stores if you have a blu-ray movie playback unit (stand-alone players or PS3), prices ranges from RM149.90 to RM199.90.