Like a cheeky talk show host, Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer made light of the uncompetitive pricing of his own company’s sleek multimedia computer line.

On stage during his keynote speech on Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Stringer joked in a self-deprecating way with Dell Inc. Founder and Chairman Michael Dell, whose online store is known for dramatically lower PC prices.

“Expensive laptop, buy a Vaio,” Stringer quipped, causing the audience to roar with laughter.

Dell said his own company, the world’s largest personal computer maker, has shipped 10 million PCs so far in the fourth fiscal quarter which finishes at the end of January.

Stringer also was joined onstage by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, director and actor respectively of the film version of the hit book “The Da Vinci Code,” which is due out this year.

Stringer said Blu-ray disks to be available this spring include “Hitch,” “House of Flying Daggers” and “Black Hawk Down.”

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Challlenging the notion that Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 was the top-selling Christmas gaming platform, Sony’s U.S. gaming chief Kaz Hirai said his company’s PlayStation2 was the No. 1 game console during the holiday season and that Sony’s handheld PSP also had outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in unit terms.

He did not specify whether he was describing U.S. sales or global sales nor the timeframe of his share claim.

While Stringer was in a joking mood, Hirai couldn’t have been more serious when he said: “We know the next generation of computer entertainment doesn’t start until we launch it.” Sony is expected to launch its much-anticipated rival to the Xbox, known as PlayStation 3, in the middle of this year.