Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Ryan Clements on the Podcast Beyond Episode 34 mentioned some secondhand information from an interview with Sony Computer Entertainment engineers in which they explained that the memory model of the PS3 has made it very difficult for them to add the feature of in-game XMB.  The implication from some of the comments was that each game would need to be patched to allow access to the XMB.  While Editor Greg Miller took issue with this and said that Sony should simply take a single Synergistic Processing Unit away from the set that makes up the Cell processor architecture and give it the job of working the XMB, it’s easy to second guess engineering.

I’ve mentioned on our podcasts in the past how not having in-game XMB messaging features at the system’s launch made me worried that it would be very difficult for them to pull it off after the fact.  It looks like that’s the case, what with their snarky “In-Shirt XMB” stunt at the GDC and the latest “Summer” estimate for when it will be released.  If it does get released and, much like Dual Shock 3 support, it needs patches from every game that is going to use it, I’m not going to be thrilled.  But, like most people with a PS3, I’ll take what I can get.

That said, if it does require patching each game to allow in-game access to the XMB once the firmware hooks are in place, it would match up with Sony’s development philosophies to date. That is, each publisher and developer would opt for “a la carte” in-game XMB, choosing to patch in the features they want to their older games if resources (and the design of the games themselves, especially early ones) allow patching. Developers who put voice chat in their games might opt to just bring in XMB text messaging and friends list manipulation and maybe audio accessory settings to allow folks to change devices mid-game. Those who put in no such features could opt for the whole enchilada. And lastly those who feel things like custom soundtracks aren’t acceptable for licensing reasons — I’m looking at you, EA Trax — would opt not to include an XMB feature like that.

In the end the power would be in the hands of the developers to allow the features into the games. Still not as good as Xbox Live’s ubiquitous voice and text messaging, but it would be the Sony way of doing things.