SCEA CEO Jack Tretton has lost his mind.

SCEA's CEO either believes Sony's PR too much or is so full of shit it's a wonder his eyes aren't brown.

Here's a few gems by Mr. Tretton from a recent interview with N'Gai Croal of the "Level Up" Blog:

"I think the challenge is providing that education to consumers in a typical retail venue. There's so much for them to absorb before they can appreciate the value, that it's more of a challenge than we faced in previous generations."

Elaborating on said value (emphasis added by myself on key parts):
"But when you're talking about Playstation 3, you've got the Blu-Ray movie player, which is obviously a new technology and something that people haven't fully grasped yet, although I think it's making great progress in the last six or seven months since Playstation 3's advent. You've got the hard disk drive built in with every device and the benefits that brings; but that's not something that consumers have ever had in a gaming system before, built in. You've got the implications of what the Blu-Ray drive does for gaming and the 50 of storage capacity. And last, but clearly not least, you've got all the downloadable content implications that the device gives you in terms of music, video, digital pictures."

Are you freaking kidding me? The only thing he listed that is exclusive to the PS3 in that entire list is Blu-ray. Every original Xbox had a built in Hard Drive. Xbox release date: 11/15/2001. We consumers are clearly familiar with having a built in hard drive in a console and have been familiar with it for 5 and a half years. Downloadable Content? We've had that available to us, at least in the form of downloadable content for games, since Xbox Live launched in November of 2002. Downloadable video and pictures? We've had that since Xbox Live was reformatted for the X360 and got the Live Marketplace. Again, we consumers are very well aquainted with DLC.

He really believes Sony has to "educate" consumers on the "value"? The value of things we've been using for 4 to 5 years?
Someone needs a reality check.

When N'Gai Croal confronted Tretton with the fact that Microsoft has been incorporating HDDs and DLC for years, Mr. Tretton responded by saying:
"In the Microsoft play, when you realize it, you need to spend more and more money and you ultimately look back and go "My god, I spent all this money, I've got all these disparate parts that I have to piece together," and you end up cobbling together a next generation machine over time."

Hey, Jack, I got a newsflash for you. There's more than the CORE SKU for the Xbox 360. If someone buys a Core 360, then yeah, the idea that someone could spend cash hand over fist for accessories is plausible, but, guess what, the Premium SKU is the one which sells the most and, at worst, the only accessory I've ever had to buy for my Premium X360 has been a Play and Charge kit. Unlike the PS3, the Premium X360 actually comes with High Definition cables out of the box. PS3, for 499, comes with a 15 year old freakin RWY AV cable. So who has to actually spend more money buying accessories? Not someone who buys the 100 dollar cheaper Premium X360!

Seriously, Tretton has not proven the PS3 has "superior value" to the existing X360. In fact, if you compare them side by side with his statements, he proves, beyond any shadow of  a doubt, that the X360, not the PS3, has the value superiority. It's interviews like this, and this unwaivering belief of their own PR, which is holding Sony back.