There was this moment, just seconds after I sat down between Phil Harrison and David Karraker, when the entire table of bloggers, PR people and developers at Sony's Blogger Congress were quiet.

Then Dylan Jobe, Warhawk game director for Incognito, spoke up.

"Before we get started, I have something for Brian."

I noticed Jobe had a small box on the table in front of him. He is a big fan of Kotaku and was impressed with what the site did last week over the whole Sony Home dealio.

So he said he wanted to give me a present to thank me. Opening the box he revealed: A set of brass balls. Brian Crecente

I'm going to try and liveblog this to some extent, so hit the jump and stick around. Keep in mind this isn't a transcription, just me picking and choosing stuff from the conversation and posting it. I'll try to look for questions you have and ask them.

Me: I don't know how many people at this table have this issue, but between retail and debug units I'm on my eigth Xbox 360. Dean recently did a story about someone who was on their seventh. What are you doing about that.

Shane Kim: It's a pretty complicated piece of hardware. Some issues are going to be normal for any complicated piece of hardware. We have a ton of engineers who are working on that, constantly working on that.

When you do have a problem we handle that really well from a customer stand point. I think we know that there is room for improvement on that. We are really working hard to address that issue.

Gamer Andy: (Paraphrased) Do you think that one developer churning out a stream of bad games hurts the overall perception of Arcade? What are you doing about that?

Shane Kim: I do think we need to make it possible for developers and publishers to bring more content. If a publisher is going to produce crappy content, customers are going to turn their back on the developer.

Gamer Andy: But when you only have one game a week...

Shane Kim: It exacerbates the problem.

Some guy who's name I didn't catch: What happened to Viva Pinata and it being as important as Gears of War?

Shane Kim: That customer segment. I don't regret saying it is as important as Gears of War. Our aspirations in this generation is to win. In order to reach those goals, to win the generaiotn, you absolutely have to break into the mass market. Titles like Viva Pinata... our super important to that. That is a super important property to us.

The support from the core customer and core press has been awesome.

With titles like Kameo and Viva Pinata, you do have to acknowledge that the platform itself is still priced at the launch price, you're not at a mass market price yet.

Me: What about innovation outside of XBLA? Can we expect to see innovative retail titles hitting the console or do you think developers see those sort of games as something that better fits on the arcade?

Chris Satchell: It's great that they have an outlet. In XBLA they can be creative. We have a lot of professional developers being creative.

Shane Kim: I think that arcade and XNA help to mitigate the business pressures that Chris is talking about, the fact that this is such a risky business. You do have a lot of risk adverse publishers out there.
Hopefully we created another avenue for creators to come up with great ideas.

Zonk: You recently said that 70 percent of the users have downloaded content from marketplace. When you guys see things like certain publishers charging online for strategy or cheats I think a lot of gamers see that and it sets the tone for marketplace.

Shane Kim: We provide guidelines for publishers. Business practices, when it comes to publishing great titles or crappy titles. That's a publisher decision in my opinion. If a publisher makes a bad decision, that publisher is held accountable for that.

My general impression is that it really tends to go toward the publisher and developer.

Zonk: Are you thinking of standardized tiers of content. Like you need to have this much content to charge this much.

Chris Satchell: It's really hard to set yourself up as the arbiter of that. We have to be careful we don't try to step in too much and by doing that and stifle innovation.

Shane Kim: I don't know if it's that different than the retail experience.

Robert Summa: But the average gamer isn't that savvy, I don't think. So is there no plan to standardize that.

Shane Kim: I don't think so. I think this is the best way, what Chris said.

Me: How worried are you about the rumors that Sony is working on something that will blend avatars and achievements?

Looooooong pause...

Chris Satchell: There is flippant answer and there is a serious answer. If there is innovation and consumers like it then I think it's cool that they are working on it. I think it's interesting. It sounds like it is not integrated into the game experience. I don't want to have to go to the dash every time I want to do anything.

Shane Kim: Chris is being more polite than I would be.

The truth of the matter is there have been a lot of promises coming out of the other camp. I look at it as 'Hey, it's along those lines.

That's all about software and we're the software company in this competition.

(The question is) Are you going to deliver that , when are you going to deliver that. How much credibility have you already burned up to get that point.

Me: And that was the last question. I noticed a lot of you wanted to hear about backwards compatibility so I cornered Chris Satchell after the thing broke up and asked him about it.

He said that Microsoft still has a team working on it, but that they won't continue to do so forever.

"At some point we're going to focus less on it," he said. "When you get to the end of this year there will be a reduced focus on backwards compatibility. There are so many 360 games out there. I don't know if it's important anymore."

All right, show's over. On to the Sony keynote. Make sure to watch our liveblog, it's going to be HUGE.

OK, you read our choices, now's your time to vote. After we have a clear winner we'll be hitting up Sony for an official response. Brian Crecente

OK, you read our choices, now's your time to vote. After we have a clear winner we'll be hitting up Nintendo for an official response. Brian Crecente

No, I'm not getting Ash, Flynn, Luke and the Mikes to roll up their sleeves and start slapping together consoles, I'm talking about company blogs.

Microsoft has, three of them, that I can think of, but neither S nor N have bothered to date. Well at least not one's run by people we care about.

So here's who we think should be writing a blog of their own for Nintendo and Sony:

Sony
Brian Crecente's pick: David Karraker: The man used to be in charge of PR for a company that made alcohol for god sakes. He's charming, thick-skinned and sharp enough to cut through the bullshit. Did I mention he is a former television reporter who covered the Heidi Fleiss story and, oh yeah, used to speak for Stoli?

Pro: Former TV reporter, did spin-control for the likes of Martha Stewart, access to vast quantities of alcohol.

Con: High enough up on the food chain that one misspoken word could cost Sony a lot of embarrassment. Anything he says will sound like it's the official word from Sony.

Flynn De Marco's pick: My mother always said: If you don't have something nice to say, keep your big yap shut.

Michael Fahey's pick: Have to go with David Karraker, who had the guts to take the Director of Corporate Communications post right before the PS3 launch

Pros: Obviously the guy has balls, and the pedigree to go with them. He's worked with Crystal Dynamics, Sega of America, the 3DO, and Martha Stewart, as well as having reporting experience. The stories he could tell must be priceless.

Cons: Everything he touches turns to shit. The 3DO, the Dreamcast, Martha Stewart, who was arguably shit to begin with. The alcohol company he worked for was sold to foreign interests and everyone was laid off. Not his fault, of course, but I've a feeling Sony is keeping a close eye on him just in case.

Michael McWhertor's choice: Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment and SCEI COO. He's only 42 years old and one of the most powerful gaming executives in the biz. Sure, Kaz made E3 2006 legendary with his PlayStation keynote, but he's smart, smooth, and pleasantly goofy.

Pro: A strong marketer who has over 10 years of experience with the PlayStation brand in the US and Japan. Probably has some good Kutaragi stories.
Con: RIIIIIIDGE RACERRRRR. Expect massive filtering on anything someone at his level says. His bosses would never "get" blogging.

Luke Plunkett's pick: Phil Harrison, executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Pros: Despite Sony's recent run of poor form, has come out with his reputation (PAL PS3 delay handling excepted) as a composed, knowledgeable company spokesman man intact. Is also PlayStation for life, which lends his comments a certain air of legitimacy.

Cons: Phil's a company-line man to the core, so the chances of his blog being an honest, insiders look into Sony are slim-to-none. Which would defeat the point.

Nintendo
Brian Crecente's pick: Reggie "The Terminator" Fils-Amie: The man is all about kicking ass and making games. And now he should be all about blogging too. Out-spoken, charismatic and really tall, Reggie might be running a company, but that doesn't mean he couldn't drop the remote for a second to send in pics of Link in the NOA cafeteria.

Pros: He knows how to charm, gets access to lots of sexy Nintendo inner details and is the man in charge, so he doesn't have to worry about pissing anyone off... well, at least not on this continent.

Cons: He's a president, president's never do their own talking. He's also a busy man. The worst thing he could do is let someone else ghostwrite a blog, because gamers can smell bullshit from a mile away.

Flynn De Marco's pick: Shigeru Miyamoto, the Big Kahuna. Father of Mario and Zelda. The Idea Man.

Pros: His child-like outlook on the world would make for good blogging. I'm sure he'd have lots of fun and whimsical things to say. Plus we might get inside info on new Mario and Zelda games coming up.

Cons: Since his entries would all be in Japanese, we would be forced to endure terrible translations and misinterpreted quotes.

Michael Fahey's pick: Pierre-Paul Tr panier, Marketing Director of Nintendo Canada - 10% of North America

Pros: Slick and polished, able to turn a phrase with ease. A relatively pretty man who has worked for L'Oreal, so he knows how to catch the attention of the female demographic. Also worked for Coca-Cola in the United Kingdom and still manages to have perfect teeth. This means he is magical.

Cons: He's named Pierre-Paul, for one. You can't help but be just a little pretentious when you are named Pierre. Even worse when you have to first names with the same first consonant separated by a hyphen. He's a PR man, so he can't help but spin things. It's in his blood. Possibly too pretty.

Michael McWhertor's Nintendo choice: Bill Trinen. He's the head of localization for NOA and the man you'll see either sitting next to Miyamoto at an English speaking press event or the white guy demoing Nintendogs at a keynote.

Pro: In addition to getting his hands dirty with probably all NCL developed titles, Bill is no stranger to being a good product evangelist. He also probably hears good things from Miyamoto, Sakurai, Iwata, Aonuma and others, things we might not hear in interviews.

Con: Probably very busy. Not very well known (could be a pro, though).

Luke Plunkett's pick: Goro Abe, innovative Nintendo game designer.

Pros: Be nice to get a look at what goes on inside Nintendo. Sometimes they give off the impression they're just this mysterious pearl-white monolith that just magically produces games - we never really see or hear of the creative process that goes into them. Considering the crazy stuff that makes up a Wario Ware game, it'd be awesome to get a little more insight into how they're made.

Cons: Not that I've ever met him, but he comes across as a pretty boring guy, which could lead to a pretty boring blog. Also doesn't speak too much English, which means he probably doesn't write too much English, either.

Wolf, 24, was recently freed on bond after spending a month in jail for refusing to give a federal grand jury raw video tape he took of a G-8 summit protest that turned violent in San Francisco.

The money raised at the event will go toward the bills that stacked up while Wolf was tucked away in the Big House protecting all bloggers' press rights.

If you want to play some games, or just drop off a check, swing by the Denver Press Club between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. tonight. Brian Crecente