Cross-game chat, the most requested feature for PlayStation 3, is not possible on the platform, Sony has revealed.
Speaking to Eurogamer at Gamescom this week, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said that PlayStation 3’s lack of RAM prevents cross-game chat from materializing.
“Once a game gets RAM we never give it back,” said Yoshida. “It’s not possible to retrofit something like that after the fact.”
PlayStation Vita actually has more RAM than PlayStation 3. Vita has 512MB of RAM and 128MB of video RAM. PlayStation 3 has 256MB of RAM and 2565MB of video RAM. Vita’s higher capacity allows features such as cross-game chat, a confirmed feature for the portable, to run in the background while playing games. On PlayStation 3, however, it’s just not possible.
“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 Yoshida, voice chat is better on Vita than it is on PlayStation 3.