PS 3 will be backward compatible for sure. At developers conferences and interviews they said that was one of the features that gave them an edge (at E3 last year).
Current techonlogy will have PS3 not that much better than my xbox.
Let's see:
If it goes to Japan mid year, then it will have around ATI9700 graphics, which is around 2x of the xbox.
around 1.2 - 1.3 GHz processor (again it's the bus not the MHz stupid) (Probably a 512 bit system)
512 MB of DDR Ram
This doesn't sound like a killer system to me... I mean maybe slightly better than my GeForce 4 ti4400. Certainly enough to run Doom 3.
Probably internal lan card included (with a modem maybe? For all the non-bbs?)
Maybe a 10 GB HD?
See this will be around $500 to produce and if sold at $350, they lose 150 per unit. Why do this when they have a good lead and haven't made enough money for PS2 yet? Sony is always cautious. It maybe Nintendo who's trying to put out a new system first not sony, since right now it's trying to play catch up. Nintendo as a 3rd party software provider anybody?