Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Ray Maguire stated:
“Our momentum will continue with the introduction of in-game communication in the summer, firmware update 2.4 and the strongest line-up of games through our third party partners and our own studios. I’d personally like to thank our trade and business partners for helping us on the start of the PS3 journey.”
Now the question is "what took so frickin' long?" Both the Xbox and the Xbox 360 have had in-game trash talking VoIPing via Xbox Live since like uhh forever. On the Xbox 360, there's memory reserved just for the guide blade functions, including pulling up friends list, enabling voice chat and custom soundtracks in all games. The Playstation 3's initial design never took this into account so it is much more difficult to add this to the design after-the-fact without causing game instability, affecting performance, etc. But if the 2.4 firmware adds voice chat and IM, without sacrificing game stability, then this will be a huge hit amongst PS3 fans. There's also going to be improved in-game chat perhaps via an in-game Xross Media Bar (XMB). PS3 fans have also been clamoring for in-game XMB GUI, which alas right now you cannot do.
Trivia: the XMB actually won an Emmy award for it's graphical user interface.
Via MCVUK
