Since Scott Steinberg sat down with GamesIndustry.biz for a long, long time, they split their interview into two chewable parts for us to digest and the second part has been released. We'll truncate the important bits, but there's plenty of information for you if you care to read the entire interview.

Steinberg says it's just as important to get the PS2 safety foods (we're hungry) like SOCOM and Gran Turismo as it is to bring in more exotic and fresh cuisine like LittleBigPlanet and many of the PlayStation Network downloadable titles. In fact, Steinberg thinks "the reality is that we will win hands-down if we convert the PS2 owners to PS3 ... we salivate at the notion of converting our existing PS2 universe." This said, he says Sony isn't attempting to sway the senior citizen market like Nintendo, just the PS2 users. What do you guys think? Will most PS2 users eventually jump onto the PS3, or are the consoles different enough to swap brands?

Capcom has admitted they are letting in a few optional features for the upcoming downloadable MegaMan 9 that cause us to scratch our heads. Hironobu Takeshita sat down for an in-depth interview with Gamasutra, but we're going to focus on the added features relevant to the game itself.

The old MegaMan games didn't allow more than three enemies on-screen at once without the sprites starting to flicker to support them ... this also resulted in slow-down. While we're not sure if the slowdown will be an option to turn on, Takeshita said "you can adjust [sprite flicker], unlike the old games. We purposely put some of those old-school bugs into this game, so it does recreate that feel." At least the sprite flicker option is just that -- an option. We're not sure why you'd want it on, but it's there just in case.

It was only a short time ago when Hideo Kojima and his team unleashed Metal Gear Solid 4 to the world. It's meant to be a farewell to the ten years of entertainment Snake has provided us. "One decade has passed since the release of Metal Gear Solid," Kojima explains to The Cut Scene. "I believe that fans have shared these past 10 years with Snake. The final story of Snake equals closure for these fans. Therefore, the Snake that has existed over the past 10 years could have only existed during this time."

Of course, what's next for Kojima? We don't know yet, but if it does involve some tactical espionage action, it will involve a completely different kind of character. "If there ever were to be a new Snake (might have a different name), he will be a Snake for a new era."

[Via Joystiq]

Let's not take the subject line without some context, okay? Kaz Hirai stated that Home will truly resonate with consumers and they will love its online services. In that respect, its release date really doesn't matter. He said in an interview with MCV: "I'd much rather make sure we take the time to have a great service rather than rush something into the market ... If we have the right service, it doesn't matter when we launch – so long as it's in a reasonable timeframe." That said, Home is still scheduled to launch this Fall.

Over at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, a man known as David Reeves is in charge. Since E3 has ended, Eurogamer thought it would be nice to catch up with Reeves and grill him with several questions that many consumers are curious about. We'll go ahead and summarize the interview, but if you'd like to read it in full, you're very welcome to do so.

SCEE has only now accepted the 80GB SKU for European territories because it finally reached a price they thought would be acceptable to consumers. This bodes well for the 'console war', but even more importantly, Reeves declares, it can only serve to grow the market even more for everybody. He makes an airplane analogy, too. It's pretty awesome and weaves itself into the rest of the interview. For example, first-party titles are the "landing lights" for the PS3.

European launches, like titles for the PlayStation Network, generally don't release at the same time in the UK and, say, Australia. Reeves says they are working on that and some titles coming up will have much closer releases between the European and Australian areas. Things like Home, he said, are coming along nicely now that they have a more realistic and less idealistic view of how the application should play. All in all, he's got faith that the PS3 is going to see a great second half of the year, it seems. Do you?

Don't let the subject line fool you -- while there's still no firm release date set for The Last Remnant on the PS3, it's coming and it's about time we learned a little more about the game. A bunch of press members sat down with the game's producer, Nobuyuki Ueda, then tried to get some information about the game's battle system and storyline. We'll summarize the important bits and let you decide if you want to read the whole thing.

The game is supposed to appease both Western and Japanese gamers. English development is ahead of Japanese, so the English dub is proceeding along smoothly, Ueda says. The battles are as large-scale or as small-scale as you'd like. You have control over five "unions" with five members in each union, but it seems like you directly control either one at a time or the leader of each union during battles.

Once battle starts, a timer is in place that'll signify when more enemy units will join in the brawl. The greater the number of enemies you choose to encounter, the greater the reward. Think of the DS title The World Ends With You to get an idea what they're going for. The morale meter does not indicate rewards; it helps you see how well other units will pay attention to your orders. While the game sounds like it keeps many traditional RPG elements, it also sounds like it may be more hands-off than expected. We don't know for sure, so we'll not make any judgments until we play it for ourselves.

[Via X3F]

Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, sat down with ThreeSpeech in an interview to discuss his plans for the PlayStation name. He began by giving some background information about himself and his transition into Phil Harrison's former position, admitting that his predecessor's departure was "unexpected" but he will "continue that drive."

Surely most of you have downloaded firmware version 2.40 and have been avidly collecting trophies on Super Stardust HD like us. But why did it take so long to get this stuff? Why are some things still missing? Eric Lempel spoke with Next-Gen on just that and we'll summarize the answers to those questions, since you've probably heard enough about what 2.40 does.

To start, Lempel says "some of the [features of 2.40] people have been requesting for some time, some of them are a bit newer. We have a roadmap and there were a lot of other things on the roadmap that we had to deliver prior to these features." They won't release features until they are completely ready and have developer support and interest behind them -- this may be implying that it's difficult to get developers on board for custom soundtracks (the ability is already on the PS3 and it's up to developers to support it). Cross-game invites are also on this 'roadmap' for the future.

He promised gamers that the PlayStation Network will remain free, stating that it's "nice for consumers who want to try out the online experience, those who may be new to it and may not be ready to commit to spending dollars, and that's a really good message for us. Being free also gives them the opportunity to spend the money that they may have spent on a subscription on online items or online games instead." He also says that he'd like to see more games on the PS Store -- like PS One titles. Whether or not these things will come in the next few months is anyone's guess ... but for now, we're pretty happy with the direction the PS3 is taking.

Phil Harrison will be missed. His groundbreaking "Game 3.0" keynote at GDC showed Sony's exciting and innovative ways forward in the online community. After accusing Sony Japan of not being forward-thinking regarding the online sector, he left Sony and joined Atari.

Harrison's message wasn't simply the creation of marketing folk, however. He genuinely believed in online communities, and without his support, LittleBigPlanet wouldn't be the game it is today. According to Alex Evans, one of the co-founders of Media Molecule, "[Phil's] influence on the game early on ... was hugely useful to have." The development team was focused on the gameplay, but it was Harrison that talked about the online potential LittleBigPlanet had. "He was very instrumental in telling us to think about what it would mean to have user-generated content - to think about what that means for the community."

It's undeniable that the PSP is in the middle of a serious software drought. Even John Koller, PSP's main marketing man in America, acknowledges that. Why the sudden drop of games, after the successful launches of games like God of War: Chains of Olympus and Crisis Core? It's simple -- PSP wasn't performing too well earlier in its life cycle, and developers have only recently woken up to the incredible potential of the PSP as a platform. "I think what you're seeing is the result of decisions made 18 months ago, a development cycle ago when hardware sales weren't as strong as they are now and we were shifting demographics from that older, professional consumer to the teen group. There was kind of a little bit of a lull in hardware sales 18 to 20 months ago; you're seeing the results today from those decisions back then."

Since then, Koller and the Sony team has been going on a publisher "road show," and according to Koller, their efforts to envigorate the PSP development community has been successful. "Our worldwide studio team is actively developing titles for that platform and we've been on a road show amongst every, major third-party publisher -- which we actually just finished last week -- and have been talking to them about really how to publish on the PSP, and the level of excitement is really palpable."

When can we expect new game announcements? Well, that's up to each publisher. However, Koller promises that "we're going to see a very good lineup of quality franchise titles coming over to the PSP that are really unique." In fact, "you're not going to see many ports anymore, and I think that's good." We'd agree.

Read the complete interview at IGN.

Rebellion CTO Chris Kingsley sat down with GamesIndustry.biz in an interview and he had quite a few positive things to say about the PSP. However, he claims that publishing games on the PSP "wasn't a deliberate choice, it just happened. We were very keen on it as a platform and it took off for us." Earlier during the the week, Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley echoed similar sentiments.

The CTO went on further to say that Sony's handheld has a good few years left in it, thanks to its versatility, but admits that publishers are not as keen as they once were about software on the PSP. Why? It isn't piracy, according to Kingsley, but rather developers want "to work on the flashy, high-end stuff." He cites the PS2 as a "less glamorous platform" that has remained economically viable for publishers because the software matches the right platform -- Kingsley feels the reason why the PSP has been "kicking the arse of pretty much every other system out there" in Japan is precisely because it has the right games. His illation on the PSP is that Sony has "done a great job," with "tens of millions of PSPs ... worldwide." but that its "incredible" success has been overshadowed by the DS.

In an interview with Pocket Gamer, game designer Ben Everett and publisher Empire's product manager Rob Lightbody went into detail about their remake of the classic game Pipe Mania (also known as Pipe Dream) on the PSP. The original game, with a simple premise of keeping a usually green liquid (officially known as Flooze) oozing through a list of different pipes of the player's choosing until the next level, has been ported to many systems over the years. The remake will feature new game modes, slightly reduced difficulty, a "leak-meter" to allow you a chance to repair the pipe, different types of Flooze, new characters, "electricity" and uniquely for the PSP, a versus mode.

However, we feel the most interesting aspect is the positive things they had to say about the PSP. Lightbody states that he has had "positive experiences" with the PSP, and they are also pleased with the sales of Jackass: The Game and FlatOut. Lightbody also states that respectable software sales are possible even in mainland European territories with a smaller PSP install base but it just requires "a little more of a focused effort." Look for this nostalgic remake coming to you from the PSP-friendly publisher in "mid-September."

For the latest episode of the PS Nation podcast, we chatted with Media Molecule founder, Mark Healey. He previously worked on Rag Doll Kung Fu, before moving onto the hotly anticipated PS3 exclusive, LittleBigPlanet. In our 40 minute chat, we covered a number of topics. For example, did you know LittleBigPlanet will have a story mode? Did you know that you'll be able to share "risque" levels privately amongst your friends? Finally, we have confirmation that Sackboy plushies are being made. Yes! Read on.

LittleBigPlanet has been evolving at every show. For example, enemies were introduced in the most recent build. How is Media Molecule staggering these features? What's the schedule and why are certain things only being shown at certain times?
To be honest, because we showed the game at GDC originally, so early on in the development process. Really, we've been showing things as they go into the game. People have been seeing the game evolve. Quite often, people show the game much nearer the end and are very careful about what they show and what they don't show. It's literally as we're designing the game that we're showing things. There wasn't one big master plan. At some point, we decided "we need enemies," so we put enemies. And then it was shown to people.

YouTube video uploading has been discussed for games like PixelJunk Eden and an educational title in Japan. Is it something that's being considered for the game?
We haven't made any plans to do that yet. But, like we've always said. We really want to listen to the community. Really, whatever they're most hungry for, we'll make every effort to feed them with what they're hungry for. Like the fluid, with YouTube -- I'm taking a guess, but those are going to be high up on that list. I don't really know what the logistics are, who you have to talk to at YouTube. If there's a huge desire for it, and it's possible, then I'm sure we'll have a go at doing it.