If the latest word from the Official US PlayStation Magazine is to be believed. Despite past assurances that Sony would leave multiplayer matchmaking to game developers and in the remit of individual titles, it now seems like a centralised Xbox Live-style service is almost certainly in the works.
PSM reports that Sony wants much, much more than a simple matchmaking and ranking lists service, and developers in possession of the PS3 dev kits will have to meet with Sony’s online compliance team to make sure their titles will work with the projected PlayStation Network.
Unnamed sources quoted by the magazine say Sony plans to develop a full PlayStation Network type service to compete head on with the current version of Live. They also say that the service will integrate the PlayStation Portable, which some have speculated may act as a controller for the PS3, and now as a portable connection to the online service.
The magazine suggests Sony has been plotting this service since just after the delivery of the PS2 Network adaptor. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to see if this will materialize like Live on Xbox 360.