We knew it was coming, but we can't help but shed a tear at the retirement of the man who took consoles out of the cartridge era and into the extravagant and multi-billion dollar polygon war currently taking place in our living rooms -- for better or worse. Ken Kutaragi, father of the PlayStation, is calling it quits today at the ripe old age of 56. It was pretty clear he was on the outs when he left his post as president of SCE last year, with Kazuo Hirai taking his place in most operational duties. Ken announced he was leaving his positions as CEO and chairman in April, and now he's making good on his promise, with little more clarity if it's of his own accord or due to internal Sony pressures for a changing of the guard. As previously announced, Kutaragi will be sticking around in an advisory role, but from here on out the expectations of a struggling company and a few million fanboys will rest squarely on Kaz to steer the faithful through this console generation and beyond. And yes, this also means we're retiring the 'shopped PS3 pic to the right of this post. It will be missed most of all.

Sure, our Podcast is a little late going up from this weekend, but where else are you gonna hear Engadget editors ramble on about the latest developments in gaming with the Xbox Elite, and Sony's loss of Kutaragi? Also up this week: AT&T misfires on the N75 launch, and find out more about how you can win a Wii.

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Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Solvent - Instructograph (Ghostly International)

Program:
01:07 - Xbox 360 Elite coverage roundup -- are you getting one?
10:42 - Sony's Ken Kutaragi leaving SCE chairman and CEO spots in June
19:58 - Sony, Immersion in talks to get SIXAXIS rumbling
22:32 - Fuh Yuan retracts $299 Wal-Mart HD DVD statement
28:27 - AT&T botches Nokia N75 launch, pulls from site
30:25 - The debacle continues: AT&T pulls LG CU500v, too
35:49 - The Engadget mascot contest: win a Wii!

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We can't confirm the statement, but if you're inclined to believe GoNintendo's report, apparently at a financial press conference Nintendo head Satoru Iwata invited Sony's departing Ken "PlayStation" Kutaragi to join up with the Wii-maker. The irony is, of course, rich. Besides being bloody rivals for over a decade, Ken Kutaragi was also the dude who hooked Nintendo into its fabled (failed) late-80s partnership with Sony to add CD-ROM capabilities to the SNES; the eventual demise of that business relationship resulted in the original PlayStation, and Nintendo's biggest single competitor since. So will Kutaragi join up with the 117-year-old upstart from Kyoto? Something tells us probably not, but man, would that first day of work ever be aaawkwaaard.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Update: Our Japanese bureau had a crack at this one, and they found the story is pretty wrong, to say the least. According to a Bloomberg report, Iwata-san was asked whether Nintendo would make a bid for Kutaragi; the answer, which we found to be a little more realistic, had Mr. Iwata saying, "I don't think that will happen." Sorry Ken, doesn't look like anyone wants you right now. Have you thought about Microsoft?

Everyone reading now is likely to be significantly older (and thusly worse at video games) by the time they're actually released, but the legendary departing Kutaragi-san told EE Times, "As a matter of course, I have the vision of Playstation [sic] 4, 5 and 6, which will merge into the network." Proud father of some of the best selling game consoles of all time apparently looks forward to seeing his ideas for PlayStations 4, 5, and 6 all come to be; obviously specifics were nil, and not much more than that to be heard since we're sure it's still all conceptual, pie in the sky stuff right now. But it's still kind of funny to imagine what the PS6 will be like, and just how accurately it will replicate sensory perception over its SIXSENSIS neural-link compared to those totally obsolete last-gen 2020-era consoles.

It wasn't hard to see something like this coming, with Kaz Hirai swiping Ken's President position over Sony Computer Entertainment late last year, but now Sony has gone and made it official: Ken Kutaragi, creator of the PlayStation and all-around good looking guy, will retire from his chairman and CEO posts over Sony Computer Entertainment on June 19th. Kaz will fill the CEO spot, while Ken will maintain "honorary" status as chairman of the group and will hang around with Sony CEO Howard Stringer, acting as senior technology adviser. We only have Sony's word to go on that this is a "retirement," instead of being "relieved" in response to recent troubles in PlayStation land. But any way you slice it, Ken had a good run, sold a few consoles, and can most likely officially wash his hands of that PlayStation Eye 'fro-cam his successor will have the pleasure of pushing. [Warning: subscription required]

This just in from our Tokyo bureau: according to an interview conducted by Japan's Impress, Sony's Ken Kutaragi has gone on record with a "promise" for what he's calling an AV-centric PS3. In other words, audio and video capabilities first, gaming second (if at all), in a device built around the Cell-processor platform. Ken says that the device would certainly be more expensive, reflecting the prices and margins expected on high-end consumer electronic devices such as TVs, Blu-ray personal video recorders, etc. -- not the relatively cheap, but powerful gaming rigs sold at a loss under Sony's Computer Entertainment division. Impress speculates that the device could cost as much as ¥300,000 or about $2,500. The new Sony-branded living room box would, in Ken's (translated) words, "be a standard AV component sized box with a more powerful, power supply unit, anti-shake insulator, twice the main memory, and 2x HDMI to split sound and video output." More Cell-processor devices in the living room? We say bring it, Sony.

[Via Engadget Japan]

We're still waiting for the dust to settle here, but it looks like the "Father of the PlayStation," Ken Kutaragi, has been bumped out of his top spot as President of Sony Computer Entertainment, to be replaced by Kaz Hirai, the President of CEO of SCE America. Ken will now be Chairman and Group CEO, while Kaz while take on the role of President and Group COO, effective December 1st. While Ken will have oversight of the PlayStation in his new roles, it sounds like he's been largely been removed from the day-to-day operations to make way for the talented Kaz to do his thing. Speculation is rampant as to whether this is a "promotion" for Kutaragi, in order for him to think "big picture" for his console prodigy, or a demotion in response to the numerous PS3 launch foibles -- we're guessing the latter. What we do know that SCEA will, for the first time, be helmed by an American: Jack Tretton, who we're sure to be seeing plenty of over the next few years.

[Via Joystiq]

Read - SCE Press Release [Warning: PDF file]
Read - SCEA Press Release

When asked the other day whether Sony's rivals will outstrip the PS3, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi merely replied: "We do not care." Closely echoing the sentiments of David Reeves of Sony Europe, this really explains so much about this product. We just wish we'd known sooner so we hadn't given them as much flack about it -- who knew they weren't playing to win? Strangely enough, Kutaragi fessed up to problems with production in the same interview, saying "Right now, it is an issue, because we can't manufacture enough blue laser diodes for our PlayStation 3s. But we will resolve that." No hurry though, right? It's not like those rivals of yours are going to do something like steal valuable market share in the meantime, or pricing their consoles competitively or anything crazy like that.

[Via Joystiq]

With next-gen console news being released at such a fast and furious pace these days, it's starting to feel a little bit like Joystiq around here, so instead of reporting and analyzing every little snippet of new information in separate posts, we've rounded up the latest and greatest PS3 revelations into one tight bit of prose. Since pricing is such an important issue to most consumers, we'll start there -- but unfortunately, the news ain't good. You probably already heard that those lucky gamers in Japan will be able to pick up their 20GB boxes for the equivalent of $428, but despite all the hoping and praying you've been doing, Kaz Hirai has reaffirmed that the recent price cuts apply to Japan only -- though he threw the rest of the world something of a bone when he also announced that everyone will be getting an HDMI port on his/her low-end system. Speaking of high prices, Impress is citing "multiple sources" in predicting that most Japanese PS3 games will cost in the neighborhood of ¥8,800 to ¥9,800, which is between $75 and $85 here in America -- ouch, that's like a whole month's allowance for us, and well above the going rate for 360 games. As long as we're dwelling on the negatives, we should also mention that not only will HDMI cables be absent from the box, both Hirai and Ken Kutaragi are leaning away from even including component action with either package. Now on to the good stuff (sorry, there's not much). First of all, it's been confirmed that all PS3 games will indeed ship region-free (though it's up to the developers to code in multilingual support, and Blu-ray movies will remain region-locked) and secondly, the inclusion of Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD (7.1 channels) is a done deal. Finally, and perhaps least importantly after all these downers, is the fact that the Wii-inspired, rumble-free controller has officially been dubbed "SIXAXIS" -- though without the shakin' action, we imagine that many of you could care less what they chose to call it. Anyway, that's all for now from the exciting PS3 frontier, but keep your broswer tuned to this channel, as we'll have just a little more Sony-related amusement for you later today.

Read- No price drop [Via Gamesindustry.biz]
Read- Japanese game speculation [Via IGN]
Read- Region-free, no component [Via PS3 Fanboy]
Read- SIXAXIS
Read- Dolby