Since announcing that its PS3 controller would include motion-sensing technology, Sony has been on the defensive, countering accusations that they copied/stole the idea from Nintendo. We recently reported on Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide president Phil Harrison's comments that these accusations are "stupid" and that Sony has been working on the motion sensing for "a long time."

Now SCEE president and CEO David Reeves, in an interview with U.K. trade publication MCV, has clarified those statements. Reeves made it clear that the controller was anything but "last minute."

"We've had a positive reaction to the controller and obviously some people have asked if it's a last minute thing," said Reeves. "It's not - it's been planned for around two and a half years."

That would mean that Sony began working on the motion sensing concept well before the public unveiling of the Wii-mote at the Tokyo Games Show last year.

Reeves continued, "If you have a device that includes 50 or 55 patents, you can't reveal it, as someone will try to file a patent to stop it. We have already had some positive feedback on it from publishers."

Interestingly, Reeves went on to downplay the importance of market share—not exactly the attitude you'd expect the dominant console maker for the last two generations to take. Instead, he talked up expanding the industry as a whole, much like Microsoft's "touch a billion consumers" mantra.

"The name of the game is not market share, it's how fast we can grow the industry -- our ambition is to grow 15 per cent a year on hardware and software if we can," he said. "We want to try and double digital entertainment in the next five to six years. Whether we have 40, 50, or 60 per cent market share is not that important."