Head of Sony’s console division, Kaz Hirai claims Playstation 3 will help Sony reclaim its position as the leading games console maker.

Mr Hirai said the machine will overhaul rivals Nintendo and Microsoft within its 10-year lifecycle.

PS3 sales have been excellent in Europe, outstripping those of Microsoft Xbox 360 but the company is struggling in North America. The Nintendo’s Wii Console rank’s as the number one console globally. Sony is engaged in a “marathon” race with Nintendo and Microsoft, said Hirai.

By the end of 2007 more than 10.5 million Playstation 3 consoles were sold worldwide. In Europe alone the figure reaches more than five million. Nintendo has shipped out more than 25 million Wii’s worldwide by April this year, while Microsoft reported 19 million 360s shipped by the same period. Both firms have however suffered from production supply problems in the past year.

Mr Hirai said: “We’ve only really begun to scratch the surface with PlayStation 3 but I am confident that given the long life-cycle we have planned for the machine we are going to have a very good install base in all of the major territories.

“I am very confident that after the 10-year lifecycle we will have the install base that we are looking for and that is obviously to be in the leadership position.”

As ever, with Sony, they remain tight lipped on any new developments.

“It’s very difficult to say at this point in time.

“We need to take a look at advances in technology in various areas, such as semiconductors, graphics chips, output devices, mainly TV and monitors, to see where we would like to benchmark our next generation product.”

Mr Hirai added that Sony’s investment in future console hardware technology remained important.

“And you can make the investments, for example, to the tune of the investments we made with previous consoles, because we look at this business as a 10-year lifecycle. We don’t let our consoles go by the wayside after five years.”

Mr Hirai said the company has begun an investigation in to pure network gaming, without the need for a dedicated console.

“It’s something we would look at. We have had a lot of discussion internally about where the road map will take us.

“[With network gaming] we’re also dependent on the network infrastructure available in all the territories we do business in.

“Some have faster broadband access than others. When you consider that content that plays on PlayStation 3 can go as high as 50GB it’s going to be very difficult to deliver 50GB to consumers in some parts of the world in a timely fashion.”

Because of the limitations, he said Blu-ray discs remained the “best and most efficient way to deliver content”.

He said sales of the PS3 would continue to be driven by the line-up of titles this year.

“If you look at line-up coming out this year - Metal Gear Solid 4, Resistance 2, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift , Little Big Planet, there is a whole raft of titles between now and the end of the year which will really help fuel growth of the install base.”

The software line-up is looking good for this year and certainly for the holiday period.”

He said the technology inside the PlayStation 3 had been a steep learning curve for developers.

“I think they are beginning to embrace the technology and are able to express their creativity on the platform certainly more than they were able to at launch.”