Microsoft's Xbox console is "finished before it even got started". So says Sony's PlayStation supremo, Ken Kutaragi, in an interview with the Financial Times today.

We've always said that the early 21st Century's big battle will be between Microsoft and Sony, and it looks like the combat is just starting to get a little rougher. Kutaragi's claim is based on two factors. First, the Xbox hardware isn't anywhere near as good as everyone thought it would be, and second, that Microsoft just doesn't fully understand the console business and certainly not the Japanese side of it. The problems Microsoft may have winning over Japanese consumers and games developers has been signalled before. Earlier this year, rumours sprang up suggesting Microsoft would delay Xbox's Japanese launch to give it more time to address the needs of that market, which is very different from the US or Europe. Japanese gamers favour different game styles and need to be addressed with different flavours of marketing and advertising. Since then, Bill Gates has gone on record to say that Xbox will ship in Japan at the same time that its ships in the US. And a handful of big-name Japanese developers have signed up to produce Xbox games. Among them is Sega, but since it's so desperate for software revenue it will code for almost anything, it's support is hardly a strong indicator of Xbox's Japanese credibility.