Everyone was expecting PlayStation Plus to appear at E3, it was pretty much a dead cert, but by the same token most of us were sure that Sony would finally announce cross game chat too – the option to talk freely with other gamers over the internet, regardless of which games you were playing.
But for some reason it never emerged. Tretton didn’t mention it, and it was missing from all the PlayStation Plus press releases when they were dished out to journalists late last night.
However, those of you up after midnight would have seen our story which revealed that, at some point at least, cross game chat was meant to be part of PlayStation Plus. You can clearly see at the link the english text mixed in with the Dutch that highlights what would have been a major selling point to PlayStation Plus.
“Invite your friends to chat online no matter what game you’re all playing,” it said, “even if they aren’t members of PlayStation Plus.”
To us, this suggests that the feature required at least one person to be a PlayStation Plus member, and if you were you could freely invite others to chat in a party regardless of whether they were members of the subscription-based service or not. But the line was swiftly pulled from the PlayStation website moments later.
So, what happened? Was cross game chat simply not ready, code-wise, but somebody left it in the bulletin on the PlayStation website, untranslated? Was it meant to be part of PlayStation Plus but somebody changed their mind at the last minute and didn’t tell everyone involved with the European sites in time?
It’s a mystery indeed, and Sony have been silence on the matter since. We still reckon it’s coming – after all, Sony themselves had let us know they were working on it at least once – but the question now is whether or not the service will be free to all, or part of PlayStation Plus in the future.
Sony have got until the end of June to work it out.
Shakugan
Eh?
Flightx
i guess it will be a plus service only and not free to standard users
AlexRoz
It better not be, the reason why I dont play my PS3 as much as I should is because of no cross-game chat. It sucks cause you have to be in the same area aka ModNation Racers to talk to your buddies :/
Pemberton_
Well, if it does come, I hope it works retroactively and we don’t have to rely on devs to patch and implement it in.
DeathByNumbers
You want to speak to people in the past? I know ps3 is supposed to do everything but that’s crazy lol
jimmy-google
I’m guessing it will be part of ps plus but it simply isn’t ready or didn’t work properly after the “scheduled maintanence” last week.
andytorr
Not happy at all. It better be coming at a later date. They launched that blog a while back to get peoples thoughts on what ideas they could give us. They must have known voice chat would come out on top, yet they don’t do it. :/
icuyesido
I hope its part of PS+ =D
iAvernus
I just hope it’s part of something =)
paxpacis
I think this would be a mistake to put it behind a payed service. On the other hand if we pay for it we can complain when it is not working, if we complain now they just say well it is free…
benny boy
Joystiq wrote a whole article on it with more details than there were on the site so they must have found out about it a different way. They haven’t even updated it to mention the silence on Sony’s part:
http://bit.ly/bxowCx
Big Goose
I wonder if anyone would care about this if the xbox didn’t have it? This is just the cold war all over again but with games machines, everyone’s just terrified that ‘the other side’ has something that they don’t.
Juelz345
Not really.
I dont care that my 360 doesn’t have blu-ray or the ability to upgrade my harddrive with any 2.5 Sata.
I don’t care that my PS3 doesn’t have proper FaceBook and twitter support.
But i do really want my PS3 to have cross game chat. And I hate the idea of my 360 not having it.
For me cross game chat is the deal breaker with PSN Plus. Matter of fact, i’d pay the subscription if that wewre the only feature/benefit. I use private/party chat on my 360 constantly. Particularly when trying to get friends together to play a few games. Or when i’m on my achievement grind just replaying a game to get X kills with X weapons. Having someone to talk sh!t with while doing an otherwise mondane task is nice.
Gaming for me is a very social experience, and any way of making it more social is very welcome. Now if i’m playing a story heavy game for the first time and dont want to be distracted by my friend(s) chatting in my ear, then i dont join/invite the chat. Having the option is nice.
Mick939
I wouldn’t care if my 360 didn’t have it as most people on there are 8 and rarely meet good friends were on ps3 I’m constantly messaging and chatting, also my mates and our lass have a ps3
Juelz345
You only use private chat to talk to 8 year olds if you wanna talk to 8 year olds.
Personally all my LIVE friends are 25+ and the pribvate chat allows me to noe have to hear the 8 years olds while playing an online game.
There are a lot of kids on live as well, fortunatley only about .4% of PS3 owners have/use a mic. If you dont have friends with a 360 then obviously you wont need private chat.
Juelz345
list of typos:
pribvate s/b private
noe s/b not
lot of kids on live s/b lot of kids on PSN
Winkle
Personally I think this whole cross gamer chat thing has been so badly handled by Sony it’s a joke! Little mentions here and there, then avoiding it, then it’s there then it’s not. What the fuck is going on! At least come out with a statement to clarify what’s your stance with it Sony. It only been like two years since it was leaked about it.
Richteabiscuit
I really think it should be free, to me PSN + should be about discounts on games and early trials, not new actual features. Cross game chat should be in there any way, and PSN is meant to be free, thats one of the main pros of Ps3.
Paranoimia
PSN is free. That doesn’t mean there’s no room for ‘value added’ subscription services.
Personally I don’t care about cross-game chat, and am not bothered if it appears or not; I wouldn’t use it, so it wouldn’t tempt me to subscribe to the Plus service. But if I did want it, I wouldn’t object to paying for it.
On the other hand, I wish they’d do it just to shut people up! :-)
Microsoft rake in millions each year from Live fees, while PSN provides no guaranteed income for Sony, as everything that is charged for is 100% optional.
PSN has been a financial black hole for Sony for over 3 years, and personally, I think its about time they tried to make some money from it. People keep saying they want this improved and that added, but few seem pay something towards it.
For me, it’s about time PS3 owners stopped being a bunch of whining freeloaders and put their hand in their pocket if they want something that much. (Not aimed at you, Rich, just a general observation!)
Richteabiscuit
I’m all for PSN plus, but only with the game discounts and early demos and all that. Cross game chat is one of the most requested things for PSN and should really be part of it, not part of the content.
I personally don’t make many purchases over PSN, i’ve only got 3 games, Warhawk, BF1943 and Fat princess, and then some DLC. I really want cross game chat and I would basically be paying however uch it is a year for that, and many people also only really want cross game chat (and Backwards compatability, I would pay for that).
PSN + to me, should be about the games, for the people that buy minis, ps1 classics, want early demos, psn game trials, actually get premium avatars and themes. It just seems a bit harsh of them to make us pay for the feature that almost everyone wants and that really should have been there from the start.
Juelz345
What they should have done is make 1 on 1 private chat free and then make the group chat part of PSN Plus, similarly to how Private chat is part of the LIVE silver account and Party Chat is reserved for Gold.