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It's coming this Friday, Nov 17. The new PS3. That's Sony Playstation 3 for those of you who live under a rock.

For those of you who scoff and shrug it off as a mere videogame console system, I say "au contraire mo' frere" (yes I'm sure I completely butchered the French expression). It is more than a mere videogame console. It is a whole new way of life. Wi-fi connectivity, multimedia capability with 60 GB hard drive, Blu-ray and DVD player with high-definition HDMI interface -- I intend to make this the centerpiece of my home entertainment system. No joke.

I want one. But it sounds like my chances of getting one on launch date are slim. They originally planned to ship 400,000 units to the U.S. for launch day. Now estimates are saying they may only have half that number available for launch. The few stores that sold preorders were sold out within hours. And now even preorders aren't guaranteed a PS3 on launch day.

The best shot at getting one is going to be at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, or Toys R Us. Toys R Us is selling them on their website at midnight Friday morning so maybe that's my first opportunity. You can only imagine how many people will be flooding that site at once. But who knows, maybe most people can't wait for it to be shipped and would rather wait in line at a store to get one. You can be sure people will be camping outside of stores Thursday night. I'm not that hard-core, I guess I can wait a few days and see what the 2nd shipment looks like.

PSXextreme's guide to buying a PS3:
http://www.psxextreme.com/feature/116.html

Check out these diagrams indicating how Best Buy plans to queue up customers for the PS3 and the soon-to-follow Nintendo Wii buying craze:
http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-screenshots/108.html