During E3 IndustryGamers met up with Eric Lempel, director of PlayStation Network operations at SCEA, to talk about the new PSP Go and the future of PSN. We'll be bringing you the full interview in the near future. Based on our conversation with Lempel, it's pretty evident that Sony is hoping to use the PSP Go as a Trojan Horse of sorts to spearhead PSN adoption among PlayStation fans.

"The PSP Go really speaks to PlayStation Network; the Go and the delivery mechanism to the device is completely powered by PSN. So we're saying to that consumer, 'This unit is just for you, it speaks to your lifestyle and what you've been asking for.' It also helps us push a lot more content through the network for PSP," he said.

As Sony looks to get every major PSP release distributed digitally via PSN, retailers will of course start feeling left out. You would think that this would be a big concern for the retail community, but Lempel insists that's not the case.

"[Feedback] has actually been quite positive. Some of the retailers were brought in early on this, and we said, 'Hey, here's the direction we're going with this.' As you know, there are lots of other devices on the market that just don't have a software component at retail. So surprisingly, they're excited," he said.

"So I definitely understand where the question's coming from and I also thought it would be interesting to see what happens when you say [to them], 'Sell this but there's not going to be a software component.' But there's still an accessory component and we've got a pretty strong accessory line; there will be new accessories planned for Go at some point. So retailers were embracing it and it seems like they're happy with the product," Lempel continued. "They're happy with the [model] 3000 PSP as well. Currently we're also doing a pretty good PlayStation card business with our $20 and $50 cards. Surprisingly, it's a good segment of our audience that uses cards only... so they can still sell these things. I think in other cases with other digital products, they really don't have anything [else to sell]."

ESA CEO Mike Gallagher recently made comments openly suggesting that certain games in the App Store should have ratings. ESRB president Patricia Vance mirrored those remarks in a statement to Kotaku.

"ESRB ratings empower parents to do their job," said Vance. "Considering the fact that the vast majority of parents are already aware of and regularly using ESRB ratings, Apple's adoption of them for iPhone games seems like a no-brainer. Apple just announced that the parental controls for the new version of the iPhone will block movie and TV content based on their respective ratings. Adding ESRB ratings to the controls they already plan to offer would give parents the ability to exert control over the games their children play as well."

Age ratings systems aren't exactly gamers' favorite things to think about, but we have a feeling that some sort of standard will need to come about for the App Store one way or another, especially as more and more kids these days actually have cell phones or smartphones like the iPhone.

That video game, however, won't be released on time to coincide with the first Hobbit film, which is slated for 2011 (the second movie, or second part of the Hobbit story, is set for 2012).

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, del Toro commented, "It's too ambitious to try and tackle that along with The Hobbit. We have such tight release dates. Planning a video game that revolutionizes all things... the way it should be... We're gonna be involved, we're gonna be participating, but I don't think we're going to create a revolution just yet, or be as involved as I would like to be in creating that."

Guillermo del Toro is passionate about games too – he's previously said that the Citizen Kane of games is coming and he's a fan of games like Flower and Shadow of the Colossus – so as far as we're concerned the more the developer of a potential Hobbit game leans on his input, the better.

Thanks to 1UP for the tip.

Today, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft Research Matt MacLaurin announced via a blog post that Kodu is set to launch by the end of June. The project is a new programming language designed to make creating games accessible even to children. It will be available over Xbox Live and functions with the use of just the Xbox 360 controller.

IndustryGamers recently talked to MacLaurin, and he explained the origins of this unique project. "It started off as a research project and the first thing we did in 2007 was look at what had been done historically with programming languages for children... and some of those languages went on to significantly influence computer science in general. We realized no one had really updated that approach for the console age, and there's huge opportunity because 90 percent of the kids in the U.S. play video games for several hours a day. Of those, well over 50 percent want to make games... What they're really experiencing there is the desire to program," he said.

"So we tried to bang out a language using a totally new approach. Our initial paradigm was, 'You've got a handful of cards, you put them down on the table and the robots interpret them the best they can.' There's no wrong way to do it; you might not always get the result you're after, but there's no syntax error, there's no 'it won't compile' etc. So we really incorporated the process of language design into what's more typically used for a user interface design process. ... We sort of boiled it down to this seed crystal of a very intuitive and understandable approach to programming, and then we've built a design tool around that. We've been working with [GM of XNA platform] Boyd [Multerer] since XNA Game Studio was just in beta, and so we've been building Kodu on top of Game Studio since [version] 1.0."

Although more complex than the simple tools in a game like Sony's LittleBigPlanet, based on the demo IndustryGamers was shown, we could easily see how with a little bit of time anyone could start learning some basic programming concepts and create some unique titles for Xbox. We're looking forward to seeing what types of games Kodu users will design. And with free peer-to-peer sharing over Xbox Live, budding game designers should really be able to help each other get the creative juices flowing.

MacLaurin added, "I would look at this as sort of a first step in what's going to be a multi-year [process] with a lot of experiments and a lot of small and large bets in user-generated content. I think Boyd's team has made an incredible statement with XNA Game Studio in the first place, and community games... So I think Xbox is way out ahead of the curve in terms of democratizing content creation. We just want to throw the door open as wide as you can get. I mean, we have Kodu in schools worldwide with seven-year-olds basically being taught 4th grade computer science curriculum. But it's disguised as an art class and that's very intentional."

You can read more about Kodu at the official Microsoft Research website for the project.

Yesterday, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon starred an extremely special guest: Microsoft's Project Natal and creative director Kudo "I Wear my Sunglasses at Night" Tsunoda. Watch Jimmy, John Krasinski from 'The Office' and Stephen Moyer from 'True Blood' demo the new motion-controlled technology that Microsoft hopes will rid gamers from the burden of using a video game controller.

Play the video below to watch Jimmy spastically jump around and yell out "this is insane!" as he plays through the demos of two games: Ricochet and Burnout Paradise. We want it, too, li'l J -- guess we'll have to wait until Microsoft has it ready for mass consumption.