He also said that Sony has "official leadership" of the console industry regardless of what company sells more consoles, and that the PlayStation 3 was intentionally hard to develop for.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 product management director Aaron Greenberg has now fired back, saying that he "can't imagine" the PS3 outselling Xbox 360 this generation, and that Sony sounds like a complacent "old hardware company."

The entirety of Greenberg's e-mail to the The Bitbag follows:

This sounds like an old hardware company that's comfortable with its market position. That complacent attitude is out of touch with where the industry and consumer is today. This generation won't be won over just hardware specs, but who can out-innovate when it comes to online and software. This is the kind of stuff that's in our DNA, and frankly moves the console war onto our home court.

I'm confident we will outsell the PS3 throughout the entire generation by providing more innovation and building the best and broadest games library while growing our entertainment experiences on the leading online network. With a U.S. install base lead now of more than 7 million units (according to NPD), I can't imagine any scenario where the PS3 can catch up with us. In fact, even if you doubled the current PS3 sales and Xbox 360 remained flat, they couldn't close the gap until 2014.

Photo credit: Kotaku