PS3 will be officially launched in Singapore next week. 200 units have been confirmed to be available on a first-come, first-served basis on March 7. Pre-orders are also available now for My Sony members who ostensibly can collect them during the IT Show, stocks willing. But although the SIngapore PS3 is priced at S$799, you won't be able to get it at this price at launch. Read on to find out why.

1. How much will the PS3 cost at launch?
Officially it's S$799 for the 60GB version, plus one Bluetooth controller. But here's the catch. You can't buy it at launch week without paying for at least another game. Now it gets more interesting. The units at the launch party are handled by Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong while the pre-order units sold at retail outlets are handled by Sony Singapore. For the units at launch you need to buy at least one other game to bundle with the PS3. I'm still checking if this can be any of the 10 games.

Update 5/3/07: Sony has confirmed it can be any of the 10 games, which range from S$42 (Genji, Mobile Suit Gundam) to S$92 (Armored Core 4, Railfan, Gundam Musou)

For the pre-orders, it will cost you S$963 including two games--Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance: Fall of Man (that's S$164 extra for two games, each of these games costs S$82 if you bought them separately, so you are not getting any discount on the games).

2. Will Singapore PS3 be backward-compatible with older PS games?
A key question since recent reports have indicated that the European version will not be backward compatible or will be significantly less backward-compatible, unlike the US and Japan versions.

3. So which version is the Singapore PS3 version?
According to Sony, it's the same as the HK version, except our output is PAL.

4. How many games does Sony plan to release in Singapore by the end of the year?
Sony cant confirm. But it added that it will release these titles in Spring.
- Formula One 06 Championship (English Ver) (online mode included)
- Motorstorm (English Ver) (online mode included)
- Warhawk (English Ver)

But since there is no region blocking for the Blu-ray games, this should not be an issue.