Some of you may remember when McDonald's UK CEO Steve Easterbrook took a stab at the video game biz last week, relating it to child obesity.

Daily Star writer Paul Vale had a snappy comeback to the McDonald's bigwig saying that the fast food franchise should look at itself first. Read more about this in the full article after the jump!

McDonald’s UK boss Steve Easterbrook recently talked about the company's moves in light of the growing concerns regarding obesity.

While Easterbrook was quick to point out the measures they were taking to slim down their food, an off-hand statement he makes indicates that he think video games are partly the cause of growing waistlines. More details up ahead in the full article.

Here's the thing: online site Games Industry recently had a chat with Sony Computer Entertainment UK (SCE UK) Managing Director Ray Maguire. He talked about the usual stuff - how Sony is going to beat the competition, how the PlayStation 3 (PS3) PAL launch was a success, you know, the usual stuff. Until he was asked on pricing.

It is no secret that the console is priced higher in UK than most of Europe, and most especially than the rest of the world. When asked about this, he amusingly answered by comparing the state of things between U.S. and UK,

If you take what's considered to be the most expensive and the least expensive – consider the U.S. with its massive land and cheap people. Then you look at the UK – a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium, and the cost of people is a lot more. The cost of retail is vastly more in the UK than it is in the U.S.

And then the official continued and mentioned that this is no different than selling a cup of Starbucks coffee or a McDonald's hamburger. According to Maguire, the cost of living is just high in UK. Factor in 17.5% VAT at the maximum and he pities the people of Sweden and Ireland.

Maguire knows well that these comments will spread across the Internet like a wild fire. And he added that Sony being on a bad light is due to today's gaming journalistic standards and the U.S. being a country of cynic people. He said, and we quote,

You also have to remember that we're one of the most cynical nations on the planet and even if you're telling people the absolute truth they doubt whether that information is real or not. This is the world that we sit in and we have to accept it and make the best of it.

We don't know how you guys would react to this but we're just telling you what Maguire said in his interview. If you want to read about the "usual stuff," the Read link below should take you to the full interview.

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Update: In an effort to clear up these statements, Sony confirmed with gaming site 1UP that his controversial statement does not refer to Americans being cheap. We all know that wasn't what he meant. Maguire was actually referring to the cheaper labor and cost of living in the U.S. As compared to the US$ 10/hour minimum wage of workers in UK, the Americans' US$ 5.15/hour does seem, we don't know, cheaper.

We play games - we don't play consoles. I don't know about you or the others, but as a "gamer" (a title that I'm proud of), I enjoy games. My title isn't "consoler" - so it's not my job to play consoles. Yes, we play games on consoles, and some consoles are better at some things (and worse at some things) than other consoles, but that's just part of gaming.

I started off with that intro because here's another "oh no, the consoles are mixing" news item that makes some people wet their pants even though it really isn't news: there are Sony ads in a UEFA game for other platforms. So we made this clarification. (And we really should clarify this before rumors get out of hand.)

• Sony is a sponsor of UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations. There are Sony ads at UEFA events. If you watch a UEFA game on TV, you'll see a PS3 ad somewhere near the goal. If there's a UEFA game, chances are there'll be a Sony ad somewhere on the field in that game.
• If a UEFA game comes out for the Xbox 360 or Wii or whatever, then chances are you'll see Sony ads somewhere on the edge of the field near the Vodafone, MasterCard, Ford, and Heineken ads.
• That's exactly what's happening with the new UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 game from Electronic Arts that has been announced for the Xbox 360, for the PC, and for the PSP. Who knows - the final build may even have PSP and PS2 ads.

 

So there's the explanation. A guy in McDonald's uniform buys food at Pizza Hut. The Apple support guy owns a PC. The Electrolux repair man owns a Maytag dishwasher. It's no big deal.

I just want to play games - don't you? And if it's good football ("soccer" to my friends), then so much the better.