Sony Computer Entertainment honcho Kaz Hirai is confused. Just look at his Giant Kaz Face, see how tranquilly baffled it is? That's some serious confusion. When Xbox bossman Don Mattrick said Microsoft would sell more consoles than the PS3 this generation, Hirai wasn't quite sure what that meant. How long does Microsoft think the generation is? Is the Xbox 360 going to be around for ten years like Sony claims the PS3 is? Questions, questions, questions. Here's Kaz's take:

Don Mattrick Says Nintendo And Sony Have Been "On Vacation"

Forget what you think about how those E3 pressers went, Xbox honcho Don Mattrick is here to tell you what he thinks. And what does he think? He thinks the other companies have been slacking off — that they've been "on vacation." No, not just "on vacation," make that "on an extended vacation." Here's the sound-byte:

I think we got more than 12 months’ work done, and others went on an extended vacation. Hopefully they got some good vacation photos, because they sure weren't showing up at work... Of course I'm going to be biased, but so far what I've heard is that Sony and Nintendo have disappointed. And Microsoft has been leading, innovating and driving a very comprehensive global programme... We're building momentum and we're on a scale that no other consumer electronics company or entertainment company has been able to achieve in nine years. It's been a very good show and I'm very pleased with what we've been able to accomplish. I think there was a lot of good work, a lot of innovation and a lot of news from us.

Oh, Don.

Mattrick: Rivals have been slacking off [MCVUK]

Sony: PS3 Is A Global System, 360, Not So Much

Say what you will about his outbursts, Sony's Peter Dille is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Dude bleeds Sony. And as is often the case with passionate, outspoken types, as often as they're wrong about something, they're right about something else. Yesterday, Dille was so wrong about Final Fantasy XIII, but today (well, last week, it's from the same E3 interview), speaking about the PS3's global appeal, he's bang on the money:

Developers know they have to amortize that investment over a global marketplace and the best place to do that is on a PlayStation format. Because if you look at the global footprint, PlayStation 3 dominates in Japan where the 360 is really irrelevant. In Europe, the PlayStation 3 is already past the 360. And in the United States you have a dogfight...So back to the third-party community, they’re looking at what’s going on, they’re realigning their development resources to exploit PS3 and I think they understand that if they want to have a global return on their investment, PlayStation 3 is the only place they’re going to get it.

Man's got a point, a point that - as the PS3 begins to slowly, inevitably pull away from the 360 in Europe - will only get sharper!

Sony: ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ Going To XBox 360 Creates ‘Jump Ball’ [MTV]

Sony Holding Resistance 2 Beta Keys Hostage In Next Qore Episode

Outside of the most die-hard of PS3 zealots, few people are yet to see the worth in Sony's Qore programming for the PS3. "Editorial" games content provided by the platform holder, at cost to the user? No, thanks. Perhaps sensing this apprehension, Sony will be sweetening the pot for the next episode, offering an undisclosed number of keys to the Resistance 2 beta, scheduled to kick off in September. You want in, you pony up for Qore. Simple.

[thanks Matt!]

Jim Lee Dishes On DC Universe Online

Sony Online Entertainment treated members of the press to a luncheon earlier today, part of the Comic-Con 08 push for DC Universe Online. The massively-multiplayer online action RPG, coming to both the PlayStation 3 and PC platforms, will be playable by the public for the first time tonight. We'll be going hands-on with the title this evening, taking part in an in-game Brainiac themed live event with other DC heroes.

We sat down with DC Comics executive creator Jim Lee earlier today to talk about the SOE-developed, DC-branded game. Lee told me that he was the one who had approached SOE after catching wind of the project, an effort which had experienced multiple starts and stops.

As a fairly serious EverQuest player — Lee played Paladin, for the record — the artist turned exec knew his stuff. He dropped MMO-isms (LFG, instances, the grind) like it was his natural language, and with a working knowledge of the DC universe, fans of the genre and the brand should feel confident that it's creatively in good hands.

"Major" PS3 Exclusive To Be Announced In August?

The PlayStation Lifestyle blog promises that on August 3rd, a "MAJOR" PlayStation 3 exclusive will be announced that makes MAG, Killzone 2 and inFAMOUS look like "NOTHING" (yes, the author seems to like all-caps).

The blog also says it'll offer three hints on Saturday, July 26th, stressing that it is a "new" PlayStation 3 "exclusive." In this case, it's the author, not I, who put those words in quotes — does that make anyone else a little leery?

Right now, all that's up in the post is a reminder that the announcement is unrelated to Square Enix's event over the same August date. Uh, oo-kay? Oh yeah, and they've got three words listed, all of them crossed out with strikethrough:

Is WipEout HD Failing An Epilepsy Test?

Considering the version we played at TGS last September looked pretty slick, the continued absence of WipEout HD from the PSN is a puzzling one. SCEE's David Reeves said last week the delay is down to a "really, really tricky technical problem", but failed to go into specifics. What kind of problems can cause such a long delay? Here's a possibility: the game's failing important, necessary epilepsy tests. That notion was raised in the comments of our post, and have now been raised by CVG as well, though it's important to note that this is far from confirmed, and Sony have yet to comment on the claims. As far-fetched as they sound (it could just as easily be something like, oh, online MP issues).

Peter Dille Talks FFXIII Exclusivity, Seems Confused

Sony's Peter Dille has never been a man short on words. So when asked by MTV what he thought of Microsoft's Final Fantasy XIII coup, he offered words:

Consumers responded to “GTA” on the PS3 just as they did on the 360. And it becomes a bit of a jump ball. But it didn’t rise the tide for them. And I think if you fast forward to when “Final Fantasy XIII” comes out I think you’re going to have millions of people who grew up playing “Final Fantasy” on the PlayStation playing it on a PlayStation 3. They spent a lot of money, I’m sure, to get “Final Fantasy” onto the 360 but at the end of the day it’s on our platform as well. Which is why we focus on, “Let’s look at what happens when you have “Metal Gear Solid” on your platform … when the NPD numbers come out … I think you’ll see the value of what a real exclusive title does and how it raised the bar for PS3 versus 360.

So...exclusives don't really matter, yet exclusives like MGS4 bring "value" and "raise the bar" for the PS3? You seem confused, Peter.

Sony: ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ Going To XBox 360 Creates ‘Jump Ball’ [MTV]

More Shots Of The Rumored PSP-3000

Additional "spy" photos of the alleged PSP-3000 hardware update that we posted last night have come to our attention, again courtesy of the PSPChina.net message board. These shots show off what appears to be a working prototype of the PlayStation Portable, said to have built-in microphone support, among other alleged new functionality.

Hit the jump for exciting photos of the new thinner PSP ring, another look at the PS button and one more cosmetic change. While you do say, chant "This is a rumor, this is a rumor."

Rounding Up Sony's E3 Presser Announcements

Jack Tretton took the stage at Sony's E3 2008 press conference and proclaimed it "the year of the PS3." Reflecting on the oft-touted ten-year lifespan of the PS2, the underlying message seemed to be similar to what we heard from Sony in the past: Just wait, a little bit more.

Sony dropped few big bombs during its press conference, which lasted an hour and a half, but did have plenty of details to reveal: just in case you missed something, we've got complete Cliff's Notes from Sony's presser for you after the jump.

CNBC's Jane Wells - Sony Is Winning, My Son Says So

I have to get me one of these "children" I keep hearing so much about. They seem terribly handy. Jack Thompson uses his to help expose the chinks in video game retail, our own Brian Crecente does some of his best work when dealing with the tiny person he helped manufacture - even CNBC reporter Jane Wells is getting in on the act, using her son to illustrate while Sony is going to win the console battle via humorous anecdote. Her 16-year-old son remained an Xbox 360 fan throughout the Microsoft E3 presser, but then Sony went and changed his mind.

Then he watched the Sony press conference, and the world as we know it changed. After hearing about “Metal Gear Solid 4”, as well as other PlayStation exclusives in the pipeline and the awesomeness of Blu-ray, he promptly packed up his Xbox 360 and all his games and went down to Game Stop to trade them in.

David Reeves - We All Have Very Sharp Swords

Man, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves is an analogy machine! In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he put his powers to task in summing up the current state of the console war.

"I prefer to talk about the fact that, yeah, we're competitors, but the competition really has made people so much sharper, and if I can use this analogy, if you're fighting in a war that's, say, Boeing versus Airbus, it's almost like battleship against battleship and you're fighting from 15 miles away; if you're fighting in the car war, it might be that you're fighting in tanks and you're one kilometre away; in the videogame industry, if there's a war, if there's competition, it's almost like hand-to-hand fighting, but it makes you sharper. You want to have a sharper sword, you want to have a sword that feels just about right, and everyone is very sharp, and what they're doing is they're looking for high ground, low ground where they can get an advantage."

So the console industry is like melee combat with swords...or is it like shoes?

Here's a gameplay trailer for The Last Guy, due on the PSN at the end of the month (least, in Japan). They sure weren't fooling around when they said it was using Google Maps, whose services you use to lead the survivors of a zombie apocalypse to designated "safe zones". The whole thing looks nice and simple (which it will be, since it's going for under $5), but whatever, if that music makes it into the final game, this moves up a spot on our shiny white purchase board from "will buy" to "must buy".

Kaz Hirai Wonders Where The GameCube, Xbox Are...

So E3 came and went, and we still don't have a hard and fast date for Home yet. Sure, we've got a "fall" dating for the Home Beta, but still, people have been waiting. And people kinda wish that Sony would hurry it up! According to Kaz Hirai, Sony's trying to make it right so that first time users have a positive Home experience. Fair enough! Says Hirai, "...we don't want to prematurely launch it and then be dinged for having a bad service... this is a platform initiative which means that we need to be extra careful that we've crossed all the 't's and dotted all the 'i's." And hey, Sony is in it for the long haul. No need to rush. Just listen to Hirai chime in about that 10-year-life-cycle and keeping the last hardware generation alive:

Posters on the PSPChina BBS are claiming that Sony is planning on releasing a hardware update to the currently available PSP, model number 2000, one that includes a built-in microphone, updated buttons, a few cosmetic changes and possibly even cell phone support.

As can be seen in the picture above, the Home button on the original and current PSP models is now occupied by a PS button, similar to the one on the PlayStation 3 controller. One could assume that Sony would have made the Home to PS change in an attempt to prevent confusion with its Home service. The purported microphone is to the right of the volume buttons.

More pics after the jump.

User-Created LittleBigPlanet Content To Launch Free

So we've heard a little bit about LittleBigPlanet's saleable user-created assets, but does that mean you'll have to pay for everything? Not so, Sony's David Reeves told Eurogamer, clarifying that all user-generated content will be free at the game's launch.

"SCEE and Media Molecule can guarantee that all consumer-generated content will be free at launch. We know how important this is to the LBP community and what we want most is for people to enjoy playing, creating and sharing their content," Sony told Eurogamer.

Hirai: Your 40 GB PS3's Still Good

Sony President and CEO Kaz Hirai wants 40 GB PS3 users to know that they still own a "very powerful machine," and said that those who need a bigger hard drive can just swap theirs out.

Speaking to MCV, Hirai said the PS3 continues to evolve over time, and that as PlayStation Network content expands, Sony wanted to offer more storage capacity without raising prices.

“We brought in the 80GB because we wanted to make sure we continued offering the value proposition to consumers in the true fashion of PlayStation," Hirai told MCV.

Does This Target Card Show LBP's Release Date?

Kotakuite ZeroGinc sent us a snap of a $5 reservation card from Target that seems to reveal a release date for Sony's much-anticipated LittleBigPlanet. Expected initially for September, you may recall that during Sony's E3 2008 presentation, they pegged the game as dropping in October — precisely the month indicated on the card you'll see after the jump: