Shots Fired: Sony CEO Calls the Nintendo 3DS a ‘Babysitting Tool’

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Sony CEO Jack Tretton just bared his claws in a catty new interview with Fortune magazine. In the interview, Tretton had some particularly harsh words for Nintendo’s new ‘3d-without-glasses’ 3DS, calling it of all things a “babysitting tool.”

Here’s the quote:

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.

Yeouch. We here at Techland couldn’t disagree more. Per our own Matt Peckham, “I guess only 5-year-olds like Chrono Trigger. Or The World Ends With You. Or all the Final Fantasy spinoffs. Or Advance Wars.” And the list goes on.

In the interview, Tretton goes on to champion his company’s Playstation 3 console (“it’s just hitting its stride”), even though Fortune points out that recent research demonstrates it lagging behind its fiercest rival, Microsoft, whom he also had choice words for (my emphasis):

They’re starting to run out of steam now in terms of continuing to be relevant in 2011 and beyond… I mean, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Why would I buy a gaming system without a hard drive in it? How does this thing scale? Motion gaming is cute, but if I can only wave my arms six inches, how does this really feel like I’m doing true accurate motion gaming?

Nintendo representatives haven’t taken the Sony bait, but we’ll keep you posted if they do.

More on TIME.com:

Sony Gets Targeted by Anonymous

The Nintendo 3DS Breaks Sales Records

What Are Nintendo 3DS Buyers Saying?