So what happens when the Apple suggests your handheld game device is sub-par? Out of touch? Passe? ‘Dems fighting words, right?

That’s what I asked Sony’s PlayStation boss Jack Tretton during a recent interview. His response? Keep talking, Apple — you’re only creating more future PlayStation users.

A little background: Earlier this month, Apple’s Phil Schiller said this about Sony’s PlayStations Portable (PSP) and the Nintendo DS, which have together sold more than 150 million units around the globe:

When these things came out they seemed so cool. But once you play a game on the iPod touch, they don’t really stack up anymore. They don’t have this amazing multi-touch user interface. The game are kind of expensive. they don’t even have anything like the Apps Store to find great games and titles. And they certainly don’t deliver a media experience like the iPod that is built into the iPod touch.

But worst is the buying experience. Having to go to the store and trying to find a hot new title is not a lot of fun.

Not long after, Apple CEO Steve Jobs piled on to the New York Times, saying that the new lower price for the iPod Touch would draw in gamers.

Tretton, whose full title is CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, counterpunched:

The gaming heritage and the home of gaming is PlayStation. Dabbling in gaming is nice and ‘thank you’ for getting people interested in gaming — because they are going to end up with us.

Its sort of like saying, I got my drivers license and my first car was a beat up Subaru, but if you are ultimately going to be on the track, you are going to be driving a race car, and not something that’s basic transportation. So if you are going to be seriously interested in gaming you are going to end up a PlayStation consumer.

Tough talk between two consumer electronics giants.

Personally, I have played games on all three devices — but not the same games — so I can’t testify to an apples-to-apples comparison. But I’ll say this: Poker and Tetris on the iPod Touch? Fun. Super Mario Bros on the DS? Cool. FIFA Soccer on the PSP? Wicked.

(Photo: Sony’s Jack Tretten at E3; Reuters)

Watch Microsoft’s Robbie Bach getting out of breath playing a wall-demolition game using Xbox’s new Natal technology, which works entirely on body gestures rather than a hand-held controller. (Click on the video and scroll onto 23:30)

Bach, head of entertainment and devices, demoed the new system at Microsoft’s annual financial analyst meeting in Redmond, Washington. There is still no date set for its commercial release.

The company hopes the new technology will vault it past Nintendo’s all-conquering Wii and rival Sony’s PlayStation.

This week marks the kick off the video game industry’s biggest event - Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, which opens on Tuesday in Los Angeles. Usually this is where the best new consoles and multi-level games make their debuts with all the attendant excitement and drama.

But this year the beaten-up economy might have more of a starring role as we note in our preview here.  As the economy splutters along, video game sales are doing okay; they’re up 13 percent in the fiscal year to $28.7 billion, according to Hudson Square Research. However, to keep that going in the year ahead analysts suggest that price cuts on some of game consoles might be in order. Actually that would be just one game console: Sony’s Playstation 3, currently priced around $400. As Billy Pidgeon, analyst at Game Changer Research said:

The thing that would really boost the industry in this traditionally slow period would be a Sony price cut, That would really help right now.

This year’s event also hopes to return to its glory days by throwing open its doors to the public again after two years experimenting with an insiders-only approach.  The show, which once drew crowds of nearly 80,000, downsized to 5,000. But insiders are not so sure that worked. According to Yves Guillemot, chief executive of France’s Ubisoft Entertainment :

In the last two or three years it was almost a nonevent. We think it will be a major event — the show has to be big. We want to attract more and more talent from all the other industries (so) they can see what is happening now.

Keep an eye on:

• From Tonight Conan O’Brien tries to fill Leno’s boots. (NYTimes)
• Sony’s catalog music now available on eMusic (NY Times)
• DoJ sides with Cablevision in network DVR case (Reuters)

(Photo of Playstation 3 controller/Reuters)

Microsoft's videogame chief Shane Kim came by our New York office this morning for the Reuters Media Summit and shared his thoughts on XBox 360 sales ("cautiously optimistic") and the outlook for the gaming industry amid the economic doom-and-gloom ("Who knows, maybe flat performance will be considered a remarkable achievement").

He also gazed into his crystal ball and served up some insights on the trends shaping the gaming business.

Consolidation is going to continue, he thinks, especially among the smaller videogame publishers as they search for hit games while keeping costs in check.

"There are a number of mid-tier publishers behind the Electronic Arts and Ubisofts and Activisions of the world who are struggling."

Another exciting trend for Kim is the return to videogame content developed by small creative teams, which he thinks could reduce the industry's dependence on sequels of hit games.

"That would be a good thing... because one of the challenges the industry has had, in my opinion, over the last five to 10 years is a growing reliance on sequels and licensed properties as opposed to those new creative hits. If we can find those nuggets that start smaller and can grow into big hits, that's a great thing."

He did wonder how smaller creative shops could find funding for their pitches, given that dollars could be hard to come by these days. But at the same time, it's an opportunity for bigger publishers, he said, since nothing rocks the gaming world like a hit game.

(Photo: Reuters)

With Black Friday only a few days away and projections for the holiday shopping season bleak, it’s not surprising that Sony is making a price cut move on its PlayStation 3 video game console to lure cash-strapped shoppers.

Now, you can get a hearty $150 price cut on the PlayStation 3 console. The caveat: you’ve got to sign up for a shiny new PlayStation credit card first.

There’s two ways to take advantage of the deal, it just depends how badly you want the PS3.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the console, go to www.sony.com/newpscard to get instant approval for the PlayStation credit card and the visit the Sony Rewards site to purchase the PS3. You’ll receive a $150 credit for the PS3 after you’ve been approved for the card. What’s more, gamers who receive instant approval for the credit card will receive a coupon from Sony for a buy one, get one free offer on any Blu-Ray DVD purchase.

For those who are slightly more patient, sign up for the card at www.sony.com/getpscard and use it at any Sony retailer to purchase the PS3. The $150 credit will show up on the next billing statement.

The offer from Sony comes after rival Microsoft cut the price of its entry-level Xbox 360 console from $279 to $199 in September - but with no credit card sign-up required. Microsoft also lowered the prices of its mid-range and high-end Xbox 360 consoles by $50 each.

The price cut has reaped big rewards for Microsoft as unit sales of the Xbox 360 leapt 7 percent in October, according to the most recent NPD research report. The release of cult-classic “Gears of War 2″ will also bump sales during the holiday season.

But will the credit card offer lead to more sales of the PS3? It’s tough to predict as the offer is most likely to be available to those with good credit, rather than all interested PS3 buyers. Gamers with less-than-stellar credit ratings might not be able to access the offer as credit standards have tightened in the face of the global financial crisis. For more of Reuters coverage of the credit crisis, click here.

Sales of the PS3 have lagged behind the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii since August. So will this offer help the Sony console edge out Microsoft?

(Reporting by Jennifer Martinez)

Wouldn’t you like to be Reggie Fils-Aime right now. Things probably couldn’t be better for the President of Nintendo of America — largely the face behind the popular “Wii” phenomenon — despite the global economic troubles.

While other executives speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Interactive Entertainment Conference today sprinkled words of concern into their otherwise upbeat addresses, Fils-Aime plainly and confidently said Nintendo is doing just fine, thank you very much.

Reuters talked to Fils-Aime about Wii availability, the DS handheld game, the future of ‘packaged’ games versus online games, and price cuts.

Reuters: Many of the executive speaking at the conference said they were cautiously optimistic about the video game industry during the holiday season. What’s your view?

Fils-Aime: If I look at this from an industry perspective, I think ‘cautiously optimistic’ is quite appropriate. If I look at it from a Nintendo perspective, i would say ‘very optimistic’. We have very strong products in the marketplace — both hardware and software. The Wii console continues to sell out, (and) on the DS side, we are at almost 20 percent growth year on year, on a record year in 2007. We have had very strong software growth, both console and handheld. And we have just launched Wii music (and) we are about to launch Animal Crossing. So we need to execute and continue delivering strong value and strong entertainment choices for the consumer, and if we do that we should have a robust holiday season.

During your presentation, you mentioned that the Wii had a “monster month” in October. Does that continue into November and December?

We certainly hope so. When I talk about a monster month it’s based on our own internal data for monthly sales in October. Later on Today the NPD (a research firm) data will come out — I am certain that it will reinforce the type of month we’ve had. It very well may be that for the month of October, our sell through on Wii may have been the best ever holiday sell through for the month of October on any console in American history. That’s what gives us the belief that if we simply execute we should have a strong holiday season.

That brings to mind the question of availability. Will your products be available this holiday season? Will there be long lines and sold out stores like there was last year?

We certainly hope not. Our goal is to have every consumer who wants a Wii console or a DS to be able find it during the holiday. We have increased by 50 percent the amount of product that is coming into the us, Canada, Latin America. We hope that that is enough product. But even with the strong sales that we have seen in October and so far in November, we are still suffering out of stocks. My message to the consumer is, if you see a Wii and you are interested in a Wii this holiday, buy it as quickly as you can.

Earlier in the conference there was a healthy panel discussion that contemplated the end of the line for “packaged” video games, and the advent of online gaming. Is that the future?

What nintendo has seen is a large installed base with strong innovatinve highly entertaining products sold at the right price. We can sell high volumes of software for very long periods of time. On the DS we have seen tat with Brain Age”, “Brain Age 2″, “Mario Kart”, new “Super Mario Bros”. For the Wii console we are seeing that for Wii fit, with Mario Kart. So we believe that there can be this concept of evergreen titles as long as the proposition is right.

Given that, one wonders if you ever need to develop a new console. How long does this generation last? Are there any plansto develop a new console soon?

We believe the role of a new console, a new system, is to bring great new entertainment ideas to life. We launched (the Wii and DS) those systems when we had great ideas that would benefit either from a touch screen or from a Wii remote. We will consider the launch of new consoles when we have got great new entertaining ideas that can only be done with a new console. As we sit here today the Wii console has a long run ahead of it, (the DS too). At some point we will launch the DSi here in the Americas. So as we look at the near term for us its all about maximizing the opportunity with the (Wii and DS).

Some suggest there will never be a next generation of consoles, due to the imminent rise of online gaming. Do you buy that idea?

I don’t buy some of the core propositions. We have seen with our own systems that the consumer wants an experience that today is better delivered via packaged content. There can be add-ons and additional content but the sheer amount of entertainment enjoyment — 50, 60 hours - is pretty difficult to provide through an Internet connection. So I believe that certainly in the near-term the current approach of packaged software with some additional online play that works from a community standpoint and a content creation standpoint is probably the model.

Now that Microsoft just cut prices on the Xbox, you are the only console maker to not cut prices. Will you?

The consumer is voting with their wallet and their pocketbooks that the Wii and the DS represent fantastic values. So far this year, month in and month out, the Wii and DS have been number one and number two selling systems for the month. That suggest our value equation is finely tuned at this point.

So no price cuts?

There is no need for price cuts on our systems today.

(Photo: Reuters)

    The rise of casual video gaming may have grabbed the headlines over the past couple of years, but the more hardcore end of the market dominated at Europe’s biggest gaming convention in Leipzig last week.
    Apart from new iterations of popular karaoke-style games such as Activision’s Guitar Hero, Electronic Arts‘ RockBand and Sony’s SingStar, which arguably kick-started the trend of easy-to-play casual fare, the world’s biggest games publishers focused on products for their core audience.
    Upcoming release Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 was a case in point. Not only does the game involve sending dozens of types of futuristic military unit across apocalyptic landscapes, but EA was marketing it in part on the basis that one of the
actresses in it, Jenny McCarthy, is a former Playboy playmate of the year.
    Most publishers were playing it safe, focusing on sequels such as a new version of The Sims – the virtual doll’s house franchise which has sold over 100 million copies since launch in 200? — or movie tie-ins such as a game based on new James Bond film Quantum of Solace.
    True innovation was thin on the ground, at least on a whistle-stop tour view of the main publishers’ offerings. Ubisoft demoed a game in the same genre as Command and Conquer which could be fully voice-controlled — apparently a first for consoles — while Sony previewed LittleBigPlanet. This marries the hot theme of user-designed content (think YouTube or MySpace) to an age-old platforming mechanic, the basics of which that would be familiar to anyone who had played Nintendo’s Mario games.
    Cute sack-doll characters jump over flames and on to rising platforms, but the novelty is that most of the game, from the characters’ outfits and personalities to the landscapes over which they clamber can be modified by players and shared online.
    But for two of the other most hotly awaited games of the season, there was no news, albeit for opposite reasons. EA’s Spore, in which players guide a lifeform in the Darwinian struggle from primaeval soup to interplanetary conflict, is due out on Sept. 4 and had already been presented in near-final form at other events, so did not get a spot in EA’s main presentation.
    World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the next installment of the online role-playing game that has over 10 million subscribers — was available to play in an early form, but it remained unclear when the final version would be on sale. A spokesman for Activision unit Blizzard could not even confirm it would definitely be out before Christmas.

    * Where do you think gaming is going in the run-up to this year’s holiday season? Were you at the Leipzig Games Convention? Tell us what you think below.

Google and Viacom reached a late night accord on safeguarding the anonymity of Google YouTube viewers. Google will no longer have to hand over the user names and IP addresses of its viewers.

But what of the scuffle around the viewership data of Google and YouTube’s own employees? CNET’s Greg Sandoval reported last week the negotiations stalled on Google’s unwillingness to turn over information on its own employees, citing unnamed sources.

In other words, how would Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google turn out if the data showed YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley viewing and uploading “Colbert Report” videos?

No word on this yet.

(Reuters)

Keep an eye on:

• Microsoft says the Xbox 360 will outsell Sony’s PS3 over the lifetime of the consoles. (Reuters)
• Provigil: the drug of choice for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. (TechCrunch)
• Carl Icahn to Yahoo’s Jerry Yang: “‘I like you, but I have to get rid of you.” (NYTimes)
• AOL launches personal finance site Walletpop. (Reuters)
• Netflix subscribers can soon watch streamed movies over the Xbox 360. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters / Andrew Winning / Protesters take part in an Amnesty International demonstration in Belfast (2008))