So, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells has been answering questions over at ThreeSpeech. We're jealous, since you all should know how much we love Uncharted. Some of these questions are good, some are left for the more techno-savvy or tech-fetish folk. Check out the full Q&A session for the complete story.

- Wells indirectly says "no" to both multiplayer and DLC -- with all the medals and unlockables, no downloadable content is planned right now. No multiplayer either, since the team wanted to create the best single-player experience possible.

- Uncharted is using approximately 33% of the PS3's available power. We're about 76% sure that he's making up about 28% of that statistic, but we wouldn't be surprised if much better stuff gets squeezed from the PS3 in the future.

- The medals will likely turn into Home trophies when the time comes.

If you want to hear about screen tearing, or the time spent in each phase of the development process, please read ThreeSpeech's complete interview.

Faster and fewer -- that's apparently Sony's plan for 2008 regarding firmware updates. In an interview with MTV Multiplayer, SCEA's Eric Lempel talked a bit about the old firmware strategy and outlined what we can expect in 2008. He said that "We're trying to certainly cut down on the amount of times we do it ... We definitely understand that it does happen frequently and that can be somewhat annoying to some users." We haven't been particularly bothered by it, but a few times it has hindered our ability to satisfy an urge to play a game online.

For those who got the PS3 around launch in November of 2006, you will have experienced the original PlayStation servers -- those things that were really slow and irritating? Things have sped up since then and things are planned to continue to speed up, says Lempel. In addition to little things like no longer having to connect the controller via USB during updates, "we'll continue to work on other ways of making it easier and faster and we'll probably roll those out some time next year." We look forward to hearing what's in store for us. In-game messaging and a possible soundtrack customization option is really all we need. Nobody can honestly care about watching a streaming video while their game is paused, right? Or viewing a slideshow of pictures? Let's be reasonable.

American gamers have wholeheartedly embraced the incredible selection from the PS3's online store. Games like fl0w, Everyday Shooter and Calling All Cars simply wouldn't have been possible through retail outlets, and their success on the PSN is ushering a new era of simple downloadable titles. Too bad the concept hasn't resonated well amongst Japanese gamers, at least according to an interview with Q-Games' Dylan Cuthbert.

"So far, it really hasn't caught on in the same way it has in the West--the problem in Japan is a traditional aversion to using credit cards, as opposed to the West where it is second nature." In America, we love to collect debt. Therefore, online shopping with credit cards comes as second nature. However, using plastic in Japan just isn't very socially acceptable. "A lot of restaurants over here don't accept any credit card at all, and when you order things online to be delivered the majority of people pay on delivery or even by online bank transfer as opposed to using a credit card." Thankfully, there's a solution. "Pre-paid cards are definitely the way to go forward to solve these problems, but they only rolled out recently, so we'll just have to wait and see."

The Q-Games PixelJunk titles are meant to appeal to Japanese sensibilities. Will they succeed with today's release of PixelJunk Monsters on the Japanese Store? Only time will tell. Read the complete interview on Level Up to find out more about this quirky PSN game.

David Jaffe, the mind behind the God of War and Twisted Metal franchise, may not work for Sony any more -- but that doesn't mean he's no longer a PS Fanboy. His new games studio, Eat Sleep Play, is working on a PS2 version of Twisted Metal Head-On and will work on three exclusive games for Sony. In a revealing Q&A with GameDaily, the outspoken game designer said, "I love the PlayStation 3. I love the PSP. I'm a big Sony fan. That doesn't mean that I'm not a 360 fan; I'm a Wii fan, and I love all the systems, but there's something about the PS3. I said it before when I was an employee and I'll say it again now, there's something just really elegant about playing games on that system."

The years of working with Sony has crafted a tight-knit relationship that Jaffe would love to continue. "So right now, we're looking to be in bed with Sony as long as they'll have us. Hopefully we'll make them happy. We'll make Sony proud, they'll like what we do, and they'll have us back time after time ... I mean the people there, they are like a family, I've worked with them for fourteen years; I have no desire to not work with them."

Make sure you read the rest of GameDaily's interview to find out what he thinks of Ratchet & Clank Future ("my game of the year"), and what he thought of Heavenly Sword ("I think we did a better job on God of War.").

Discounting the excellent PSP-exclusive Daxter, it's been a while since we've seen a new iteration of Naughty Dog's action platformer. With work finished on Uncharted, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells had a few things to say to ThreeSpeech. The engine used to create the beautiful vistas of Uncharted will certainly be used as the foundation for their next game. "We will most definitely continue to build on the Uncharted code base with all of our future titles for the PlayStation3. We have a lot of very sophisticated systems that are general purpose and could be used for a wide variety of genres. It's very exciting to think what we can do with this tech now that it's in place and we can focus on accomplishing something even more ambitious."

Of course, what could the team be working on next? "Jak and Daxter is a definite possibility some time in the future. There is a lot of interest around the office in going back to that franchise and seeing what we could do with it using the Uncharted engine."

Granted, we'd be more than ecstatic for the announcement of either a new Jak or Uncharted game. Leave it to Naughty Dog to create characters that we just can't get enough of.

As you guys are probably aware, the PS3 has gone through some rapid shifts in advertising lately -- shortly after their latest test with the ads highlighting important game titles among its other uses, Sony dropped their ad company and enlisted a new one. But how did those new ads work out? Scott Steinberg, VP of Marketing at SCEA, lets us know what's up with that campaign. In a nutshell, he says, "It's exceeded all our expectations. We've had great comments from analysts and our business partners that it's really elevating the PS3 business." Then let's bust out the champagne, right? Even the band in the commercial, Saliva, has felt some success from the ad campaign.

Retailers have also helped by bundling in Blu-ray movies after the ads aired and as Steinberg explains, this helps explain "why it's being promoted in stores so aggressively. It's no doubt that it's a big part of our value proposition [for the PS3] and we feel we have done a great part of emphasizing on the merchandising half of things; it's paying dividends."

Steinberg took a minute to talk about his move from the Sega Genesis days to his time now at Sony. Since we've got a soft spot for the ol' Sega boys, we'll give you the skinny. "There is so much passion around the technology and the products, and a lot of that at Sony reminds me of the 'halcyon' days when 16-bit was just taking off ... There's nothing like the technology and entertainment businesses; we've merged them both and it's an addictive cocktail." We hope he continues to spearhead such effective ad campaigns in the future and remind us why the Genesis rocked so hard and how the PS3 will, too. Assuming you thought the Genesis rocked hard. It did. It had Phantasy Star.

Yoichi Wada is the CEO of Square Enix, making him a very important spokesperson for the company -- especially their well-established Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises (the latter formerly under Enix's care). Wada took some time to speak with CNet Japan about the latest generation of consoles. Besides saying that the PS3 is a media hub and a gaming console, he noted that only the Xbox 360 has appropriately touted itself as a gaming machine. The Wii, he says, well, "people aren't buying the Wii as a game machine, but as a toy." His comment about the PS3 was meant to say the system hasn't clearly defined what it is and that it should, soon.

He also goes on to say that Square Enix isn't just a DQ and FF company -- Wada says they make so many of those games because "... people keep asking for new installments." It's not entirely relevant to the PS3, but Square Enix is making a lot of fresh IPs in the coming year aside from the next entries in their beloved franchises. With his attitude, though, he seems hesitant to put them on the PS3. Hopefully people will understand that the PS3 is a gaming console, but has the capacity to be so much more. It's not confusing; it's just hard to believe it can do so much.

[via Kotaku]

The strong arm of SCEA, Jack Tretton, sat down for an interview with MSNBC oddly enough and talked about Sony's strategy for the PS3 in the coming year. We actually move away from food analogies this time and get right into sports, as Jack explains the first year of the PS3 like "the first inning of a nine-inning baseball game ... You're not going to win many baseball games if you panic when you're down 1-0 in the first inning." He talks at length about the price cut of the PS3 and how it has boosted sales significantly, upcoming exclusive titles, and other stuff we've heard many times before.

As for whether or not Tretton thinks consumers are ready for high-definition broadband-enabled consoles, he thinks that no, not every consumer is going to be able to take advantage of the PS3's many functions right away, but that's fine, he says. The system is designed to last a decade and by that time, everyone will love what the black monolith has to offer. Tretton also notes there is a learning curve consumers need to be aware of when buying consoles anymore -- it's not just a purchase, plug, and play scenario anymore.

One final note -- he talks about the Sony "arrogance" that has been construed around the internet and says that they aren't actually arrogant, rather, bloggers and press ran the idea around so much that it started to stick with people and, well, perspective plays its role. Something along those lines.

In a massive interview with Gamasutra, Mark Rein sat down to discuss pretty much everything that makes him, him and Epic Games, Epic Games. For the sake of space and your sanity, we'll close the gap on the wide array of questions and focus on Mark Rein's stance on the PSN. It's a good one. The PSN is open-platform, meaning it will allow us to utilize user-generated content.

Rein's thoughts? "It's fantastic! I can't understand why people are so nervous about what Sony... no, Sony's wonderful. When they embrace user-created content, that's what it means to be an open system. That's why we're on PlayStation 3 first -- because they are embracing user-created content." We sure are with Unreal Tournament 3 hitting this December. It'll be very easy to load up the mods from the PC and transfer them onto the PS3 and if it's any indication how future titles will utilize the open platform, then we're in for a treat.

Happy Birthday PS3! One year down, nine more to go. Sony's first year in the new video game generation has been a rough one. But, what does Sony have to say about it? We chatted with SCEA's Kim Nguyen, Marketing Manager of the PS3, to find out more.

PS3 has struggled quite a bit during its first year of release. Why do you think the games media has bashed the PS3 so much?
Looking back on year one, we're proud at how far the PS3 has come and are sure that the future will only be brighter. There were some bumps in the road but that's to be expected during the first year of a platform's lifecycle. Regardless, we are very confident in the future of PS3 given our new hardware and pricing, along with the strong line up of upcoming software titles that will place PS3 in a very strong position this holiday and for years to come.

What has Sony done to turn things around?
We recently launched new PS3 hardware and pricing and are already seeing strong sales momentum at retail--PS3 sales have increased by 192% over the past 2 weeks at major retailers in North America . We have more than 160 games coming to the platform including 19 exclusives. We also recently launched a new ad campaign, our biggest marketing effort to date, that conveys the overall benefits of PS3 including Blu-ray and PLAYSTATION Network. Again we feel PS3 is in a very strong position this holiday and for years to come.

SCEE's managing director Ray Maguire has stayed out of the spotlight compared to his cohorts Kaz Hirai, Peter Dille, Phil Harrison, and probably some other names we don't remember. He sat down for an in-depth interview with Edge, but we're here to shorten it up for you, though we strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. A bulleted list of the main points follows!

• Some babble on backwards compatibility being removed, which we've all heard and the matter's been beaten to death with a blunt cudgel. A new item appears in the rationale for the move -- the Cell chip. Ray says: "... how do we allocate things within the Cell chip? And there is a big cost involved with doing the software emulation. So it's a cost issue, and – as we always do – we want to bring the price of the hardware down."
• The decision to drop the 20GB PS3 from the European launch was a smart move, Maguire said, since they still had the biggest launch ever with just the 60GB. The reasoning? Europe is one of the "most successful territories in the world in terms of people's propensity to [play videogames]" and so early adopters got what is still believed to be the best package -- the 60GB PS3.
• The console library has come under scrutiny ever since launch and Maguire concedes this fact. However, he says, "it's an area that's starting to change." He goes on to say how games are starting to run different on the PS3 in a good way, thanks to the standard hard drive (we'll go into this idea more when we review Bladestorm early next week).

There's plenty more discussion about Remote Play and third-party support in the coming months, but we don't want to spoil everything for you! It's a great read and showcases how the PS3 might try to change things around in 2008 with an ambitious library of titles lined up (some will probably get pushed back to 2009, in which case we'll feign surprise and counter with "well, it's still fiscal 2008" and snub our noses like proud fanboys). Still, if we don't buy the stuff, it won't matter what Sony does.

Another interview took place where Mark Rein, the man behind Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 3, chatted about the PlayStation 3 version of the game as well as some other bits. A lot of the information is redundant, such as keyboard and mouse support and the lack of cross-platform play (unless you own the PC and PS3 versions, you can use your PC as a dedicated server and move all the mods and such from the PC to the PS3).

What Mark hadn't talked about before was the Sixaxis. It will be used, but only to steer the hoverboard and Redeemer. He didn't say if there was an option to turn the controls off, but we'd imagine so. Another thing he mentioned was the reason for the PS3 version's delay. The PS3 version has to go through a lot of certification processes, and those are taking longer than anticipated. Nothing wrong with the code or any difficulties working with the PS3.

There's a lot more information in the interview, especially if you're predominantly a PC gamer. Talks of PhysX ensue and the jargon started to go over our heads. Still, we know our readership isn't solely Sony supporters, thus our heads up to you guys to check out the interview if you're curious about that.

The upcoming Rat Race surprised everyone when it was announced a few weeks ago. Now, Greg Easley and the rest of the Rat Race team must figure out the finer points of comedy, as they venture into new, unknown territory. See our exclusive interview below.

The game is currently announced for PS3. Do you intend on keeping it a PS3 exclusive, or will it appear on XBLA as well?
Rat Race is a first-party Sony title and will remain a PS3 exclusive.

What was the inspiration for an episodic comedy game?
Back when we were a tiny startup, a friend of the company suggested we avoid traditional genres and set our sights on making a totally original game. Knowing what our engine could do, he suggested setting the game in an office and incorporating over-the-top comedy. It didn't take long to figure out nearly everyone on the planet has funny and outrageous office stories to tell. (Don't you? Admit it!) We realized that with material this rich we should just go for it.

Does it still count as flamebaiting if the one making the claim is responsible for both games? Either way, Mark Rein of Epic Games has expressed how proud he is of Unreal Tournament 3 and really hopes it can still get a release this year in Europe, but probably won't. The game boasts amazing graphics, so amazing he said, "It's a really high end experience that pushes the graphics bar up even higher than Gears of War. There's more polygons, there's more stuff going on, there's more explosions and there's more things happening." Draw your own conclusions.

How about programming difficulties? Rein says such things had no effect on them in the end. "I don't think the PS3 was any more of a challenge than any other new piece of hardware that we've used. Remember, we've been making PC games for years and the PC isn't one platform, it's hundreds of platforms. There's no two PCs that are completely identical in many cases." The game also seems to go at just the right speed for a console, he said, lending itself well to controller ... controls. Though you can still use a keyboard/mouse if you'd like. Which will you guys use?

Seems that talking up about the PlayStation 3's development process is in style -- first IO Interactive said how fun it was, now Ubisoft's own Yves Guillemot is claiming that it's no harder than programming a 360 title. Perhaps that's stretching it a little. Ubisoft is saying that, from a development standpoint, the two consoles can yield them equal results, working on the respective strengths of each console. In addition, he feels the rest of the year will be excellent for the PS3, with the price cut and lineup of good games.

As for the rumor that it costs a lot more to work on the PS3, well, it's still true, but not a major hike in price due to Ubisoft's complete cross-platform engine thingy. "What we do now is create for the PS3 and 360 at the same time, and it doesn't cost more than 10 per cent extra to develop for the other machine ... Before it was costing us more, about 20 per cent, just because it was difficult to learn the PS3 hardware, but now our engines are done and we can easily develop for both machines." Good stuff, we guess. Hopefully this means less delays for PS3 versions of games as well as equivalent gaming experiences.