Here I am with your nightly bad news! Certain HDTV owners might not be in the for the high(er) definition visual experience they expected this weekend, as we're hearing rumblings that HDTV owners who don't have a 720p capable set are going to have to settle for less, nor scale up for more.
After a handful of forum posters discussed the issue last night, mega site IGN has done some testing to confirm the potential problem.
Gamers who own older HD sets that feature only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolution input capabilities will have to settle for the display quality being downsized as the game boots in its 480p mode rather than upscaling the image from its more desirable 720p mode to the TV's 1080i. We tested this development on older HDTV sets with games designed for 720p but not 1080i — Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon. Sure enough, the system downshifted all four titles to 480p rather than moving up to 1080i.
Bummer. I'm glad I'm going HDTV shopping now armed with this knowledge. Hopefully, Sony can address this issue with a future update.
Follow gamingsony on Kotaku