As the Tokyo Game Show gets set to kick off in full, Ken Kutaragi delivered his keynote speech today (last night US time). In addition to the major announcements that (in Japan, at least) the 20GB model of the PlayStation 3 will ship with HDMI support and cheaper that expected, the president of SCE also mentioned that Sony may charge gamers to play demos for their system...unfortunately, the details are different depending on where you go.

According to IGN, Kutaragi suggested that Sony may make retail kiosks for their new systems like an arcade, where consumers would have to pay about 100 yen (roughly $1 USD) in order to try out the system. However, others sources suggest that instead gamers will pay to download games over Sony’s online service. Either way, the idea (which has not been official confirmed, only toyed with at Sony) is, well, a bad one.

Even from Sony’s point-of-view, charging people to just try your system in a store could drive away potential customers and undoubtedly hurt the company’s bottom line. As for charging PS3 owners to download game demos online, well, it seems a little more reasonable. Microsoft charges $50 USD a year to play games online and Sony has stated that you can do that on the PS3 for free, so the demos could be seen as a way for Sony to cover the cost of such a network.

It should be noted that, in addition to not being a finalized plan, there was no mention of whether or not a similar plan was in the works for the U.S. or other regions. As always though, we will continue to follow this story and bring you any updates as we come across them, so be sure to check back at VGGEN often!