We hope he's ready for the backlash

Some Sony executives have positive things to say about the company's rivals, and some don't. Sony president and CEO Jack Tretton is without doubt a person that falls into the latter category.

Speaking to Fortune, Tretton refers to Nintendo's handheld offerings as the "Game Boy experience", and he doesn't seem too impressed with the apparent street credit that they supposedly lack:

Our view of the 'Game Boy experience' is that it's a great babysitting tool, something young kids do on airplanes, but no self-respecting twenty-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those... He's too old for that.

Maybe he's forgetting that the Nintendo DS range has reportedly sold over 146 million units worldwide and has already established itself as the best-selling handheld console, dwarfing the 67 million PlayStation Portables that Sony has managed to shift.

There's also the notion that a console is defined by its games. Of course, these are just sales figures and does not factor in the "self-respect" that Tretton is talking about. Ooh, let the furore commence.

[source tech.fortune.cnn.com]