In lieu of all those excellent games the PS3’s supposed to be getting between now and, er, whenever – 120 or so are incoming, apparently – it’s heartening to know that Sony has other, potentially more useful projects on the go.

Step forward one Warwick Light, the head of marketing for Sony New Zealand who, in a perhaps too revealing interview with Kiwi news website, The Press, announces first that he’s “stoked” with the 9019 (hah!) PS3’s sold since launch and then goes on to casually mention that the company is hoping to launch a digital tuner for the PS3, effectively “turning it into a programmable TV recorder”, he says. According to Light the tuner functionality is planned to launch in time with the arrival of Freeview’s terrestrial broadcasting service, which is expected to be March 2008 in NZ. Kroinks!

We love it when corporate execs forget to toe the company line like this! Either way we’ve got to assume that he knows what he’s talking about. Furthermore it’s supremely unlikely that the TV tuner is being launched for the sole benefit of 9019 antipodean PS3 owners or even that it will launch in New Zealand before other larger territories. So PS3 DVR functionality early next year for all it is, then.

Well, at least until the Sony Europe marketing police spot the leak and flatly deny the story right up to the point that the product launches. Just watch 'em...