Friday is the day that Sony's much, much, mucho anticipated PlayStation 3 hits retailers' shelves.

(How many more hours is that? Is there a PS3 "countdown to launch" clock anywhere? Tokyo perhaps?)

But with all of the production problems (reported for months just about everywhere), you'd better be on line.

(And by this I mean physically outside the store waiting if you want the chance to plunk down plenty of C notes for this baby.

Especially after some pre-orders have been rescinded (as in "we really didn't mean for you to place an early order and think you'd get the product").

Good luck!