TOKYO--Sony will release the PSX on December 12 in Japan, one day earlier than expected--but consumers will have to do without certain specs the PSX was previously promoted as having.

Sony revealed today that PSX production has been rushed in order to get the appliance to retailers in time for the holiday shopping season. And while the company plans to offer firmware updates to owners, the machine will be missing a few of the capabilities that were originally announced.

Changes to PSX's specs are as follows.

- HDD to DVD dubbing has been downgraded from 24x speed to 12x speed.

- CD-R playback will not be supported.

- DVD+RW playback will not be supported.

- MP3 file format will not be supported.

- TIFF and GIF file formats will not be supported.

- Sony's Cybershot movie format will not be supported.

And oddly, for a TV appliance, the PSX will not come with an antenna output; so users that plan to use both their TV and PSX may need to split their antenna. Also, the PSX will come with an internal Ethernet adapter, but it will not be compatible with the popular PlayStation BB service at launch.

The PS2 compatible DVD-HDD recorder is offered in two models. The top end model of (99,800 yen, or about $906) comes with a 250 GB Hard drive, while the low end model (79,800 yen, or about $725) comes with a 160 GB hard drive.