Sony president Kaz Hirai has fired a broadside at Microsoft's Xbox 360, saying that assumptions that the console is as powerful as the PlayStation 3 "simply is not true."
"No other next generation entertainment system pushes the envelope on advanced technology like PS3," Hirai told Blu-Ray Daily in a CES interview.
"People say that a high-capacity game delivery vehicle like Blu-ray isn't necessary in a next generation computer entertainment system. But you just can't expect that 9GBs of storage capacity found on today's DVDs are going to have enough space to hold tomorrow's games, he said. "Resistance: Fall of Man simply wouldn't be possible on any other system without using multiple discs."
Speaking about PS3's launch - and seemingly extending the gaming handbag scuffle to Sony's other competitor, Nintendo - Hirai said that "A worldwide launch for any console is quite ambitious. In fact, it has never been done before. I suppose if we had simply done a mild upgrade to the PS2 and not pushed the envelope so hard, it would have been easier on ourselves. However, if we did that every time, we wouldn't be Sony."
Hirai then touched on the console's manufacturing problems: "I don't think anyone could have foreseen the difficulties we encountered in the production of the blue laser diode for the PlayStation 3, which ultimately delayed the launch of PlayStation 3. We were asking our teams to develop millions of components for the PlayStation 3, like the Blu-ray Disc player and cell broadband engine, that had previously only been produced in the thousands."
PlayStation 3 is expected to launch in the UK in March.
