Cross-Game Chat on PS3 “Not Possible”

For years now, fans of the PlayStation 3 have demanded cross-game chat for their favourite console, which allows them to speak to anyone in their friends list via headsets whilst in separate games. As a popular feature that is already available on the Xbox 360, it seems like a no-brainer to bring it to the PlayStation 3. And with the recent announcement of the feature being implemented to Sony’s upcoming handheld console – the PlayStation Vita, the possibility of cross-game chat on the PS3 has been revived once more as a major talking point amongst fans.

However, the President of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has been left with the very unfortunate job of quashing any hope that fans ever had of getting cross-game chat on the PS3.

Yoshida explains that as the PS3’s RAM is used by the game the system is running. Because of that, the console cannot support cross-game chat like the Xbox 360 does.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Yoshida said:

Once a game gets RAM we never give it back, it’s not possible to retrofit something like that after the fact… The game has to use its own memory to do [in-game voice chat]. There’s always voice chat in the game. But it’s a part of a game feature. It’s not a part of an OS feature. That’s the reason in terms of the ability to have voice chat across different games.

According to the recent unveiling of the technical specs of the PlayStation Vita, it possesses more RAM than the PS3, which is the reason behind the Vita’s ability to implement the cross-game chat function. To be specific, the PS Vita possesses 512MB of RAM and 128MB of video RAM compared to the PS3’s 256MB of RAM and 256MB of video RAM.

 

Source: Eurogamer