I got a Japanese PS3 now, with 2 games:

- Resistence Fall of Man
- Ridgeracer 7

When I insert the games, and select them, then I see the following message on the screen:

"
The system software of your PS3 system is version 1.00
To start you must update to version 1.02 or later.

Do you want to update now ?
"

Hmmmm, I do not like that, because I cannot go back anymore to 1.00 I think (almost know 100% sure).

What would you do ?

PS Hopefully the PSP firmware 1.02 is not something like PSP firmware 2.81...............

I don't know why people are so stingy about firmware updates. I would hate to have V1.00 firmware on anything I own.

I was thinking the same thing. Why on Earth would anyone want old firmware? It obviously lacks compatibility with current development.

I updated to 1.02.

I expected that the update would be written somewhere on a NAND on the motherboard, but the message said that it was written on the hard disk :-)

From the PS3 menu, I :

- formatted the hard disk
- restored all defaults

But firmware still keeps on 1.02

Next thing is to remove the harddisk, to see what happens to the firmware.
I keep you updated.

Your partially right about that...........the update is indeed stored on the hard disk, but when it is installed, it will proably write to the NAND and keep the FW there.

What you should try, is get a PS3 that hasnt been updated from the 1.00 FW and put a blank HDD in the PS3, so it wont find the update to install.

It lacks compatability with current 1st Party development. My PSP stayed on firmware 1.5 until 2.71 was decrypted and modified.

Homebrew is development too.

But not upgrading so you can play developer games (the only ones that are currently available) so that you can run nonexistant homebrew seems a little silly. Why own a PS3 if you won't play games?