PS3 hits top form in four to six years, Sony says

It's going to be a matter of at least four years before the Playstation 3 is performing optimally, said Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai in an interview in Official Playstation Magazine.

"The power that we've packed into PS3 will really manifest itself in software titles that come up four, five or six years down the line," Hirai said in the interview.

Hirai also commented on reports from third-party developers that the PS3 tools are too difficult to program with.

"If they came back and told me, 'PS3? We can do this in a heartbeat,' that would be worrying because what it is telling me is that we're not pushing the envelope from a technology standpoint," Hirai noted, pointing out that this was a familiar scenario for Sony. "If you look back at the commentary we received when we launched PS2, there was a lot of talk to the effect that 'It's very difficult to program for' and 'It's easier on a Dreamcast'. It's happened before."

On the heels of Hirai's interview came a statement from Guerrilla Games lead developer, Herman Hulst, who adamantly defended the PS3's controversial Blu-ray device in an interview with CVG during a playthrough of Guerrilla's forthcoming PS3 title, Killzone 2.

"The level you've just seen is 2GB. We really need Blu-ray to make the game. I don't know how you could fit it on Xbox 360 without taking some shortcuts," Hulst said, adding that, "Blu-ray isn't important for watching movies; we need it for making games."