SCE Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida is obviously proud of Sony's new brainchild, the PS4, and today he didn't shy away from giving five reasons why customers and gamers should think about purchasing a PS4 instead of a Xbox console when asked a very direct question during  an interview on the Financial Post.

There are many reasons, but I have a top five! [Smiles]

The number one reason is that we believe the PS4 most powerful game console. It’s future proof. The system can grow, the games can grow, but day-one there are lots of games that take advantage of the PS4 rendering natively at 1080p, which is higher resolution than [pause] other systems. It’s so beautiful.

Number two is the variety of games available day-one and coming out soon. We made it our number one priority in development to make developing games on PS4 as easy as possible. We reached out to indie developers to make very attractive, unique and interesting games. So that many of these games are coming out on PS4. We have been doing this effort for the last few years; it isn’t like we just started this year or anything. There are already many great indie games on PS3 and PSVita, and people are enjoying it. And we are making sure that the same happens on PS4 as well. And that more even games could come out on PS4, not only the biggest of the studios but the smallest of the studios, especially those who have unique, interesting ideas.

Number three are the features, like social features and the share buttons. The ease of use for the system. You can use your smart phone to purchase a game and while you are away it will download the game at home, so when you get home, the game could be already downloaded and waiting for you. So all of these ease of use and fun to use and fun to find out information about what your friends are doing, all of this is built into the system features.

Number four: We have a large network of studios in the world-wide studios. We are launching PS4 with five first party titles. KnackKillzone Shadowfall and Resogun, and Flower and Soundshapes from PS3. But there are a lot games in productions and there are many great studios working on PS4 titles. Many of them are new IPs, and we are waiting for the right time to announce them. So down the line, great games are coming from these first-party studios.

And number five: It’s a hundred dollars cheaper than some direct competition. So, if you like money, it’s always a great choice.

Those are indeed five quite compelling reasons, even if we have to keep firmly in mind the fact that Yoshida-san isn't exactly a neutral observer in the competition, so some of them should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

I'd be quite curious to hear Phil Spencer (the man occupying exactly the same position on the other side) give five reasons in favor of the opposite option. He got quite near to doing it a few times (here's an example), but not yet this directly.

It's also quite interesting to see how the mainstream press has a lot less problems than the specialized gaming press (that often seems to be a little squeamish and overly diplomatic) in throwing direct, hardball questions like this one.