SCEA's Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller once again gives us the rundown of what Sony has in store for the PlayStation 3 and the PSP.

Some of what he said are stuff we heard before, but all in all, it sounds like gamers will have a lot of reasons to be really happy pretty soon.

PlayStation Home

First off, about Home. Although Koller can't give an actual release date, he does say that its release is "imminent," and that he strongly feels they'll be able to launch it before next year. So what's with the hold up?

We want to make sure that it's the best, so a lot of what we're doing in the closed beta is fixing some of those loose ends and making sure that the final launch product is fantastic. Everything that we're seeing right now is that it's going to be everything and more that consumers have been asking for.

He also addresses info that's been leaked not very long ago, indicating that the new Home interface isn't a PSP anymore. He doesn't give specifics, but he does say that "The PSP's always been part of the integration plan, so we see that as valuable, but we should probably give you more direct comments later on."

More PSP games next year

While we're on the subject, Koller also mentions that they are working on strengthening the connection between the PlayStation 3 and the PSP, and will be an area of focus next year. PSP gamers will also have more games to look forward to next year:

We're going to have to get beyond the holiday before the announcements from third parties; they want to sell their products for this year.

[...] You notice that on any board you go to online, it's like there's always that discussion of "Where are the games?" and "Will we get them?" and there's always that answer of "Yes, they're coming" and we can say unequivocally that in '09 games are coming and they're going to be rewarded.

[...] When the games come in the quantity and quality we'll see next year, I think it's going to be a real strong tidal wave for sales.

Hybrid Blu-ray discs

Finally, he mentions that there is a possibility that we'll see hybrid Blu-ray discs next year:

You could have games that have maybe a movie or a trailer attached to it on the disc. The space... [laughs] 50 gigs is a lot of space, so there's... many games can accommodate that.

Games like Resistance or Metal Gear which are bumping up on that top end may not have as much space, so it really depends, but the ability to have a Blu-ray hybrid disc is certainly available and I think we'll see some of that next year.

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