Why It Rocked: Though modern HDTVs are able to automatically scale between 720p and 1080i images, some older HD sets will only accept one or the other. Such is woe for PlayStation 3 gamers with one of these sets as the system cannot currently scale games or movies on its own. If a TV only supports 1080i and a game runs at 720p, the PlayStation 3 will downscale the output resolution to 480p, hardly HD-quality gaming. The opposite is true of Blu-ray movies: Attempting to watch a movie on a 720p-only HD display will have it output at 480p.
While on its own this lack of scalability is surprising, it's even more so considering that the Xbox 360 has been scaling games flawlessly for the past year. Oddly enough, no one realized this was going to be an issue until just before the system's release. A nicely kept secret by Sony, or something it had simply overlooked? Either way, it's easily the PlayStation 3's most surprising news of 2006, and for some, disappointing."