In a candid interview with Edge magazine, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment’s worldwide studios admits that his company was a bit tardy to the online party. “We were late to offer the platform-level support, to make online functionality work at that level,” commented Shuhei Yoshida, referencing Sony’s “anything goes” approach to online connectivity. During the PS2/original Xbox days, the then-budding Xbox Live offered many of the features that it does today, with a singular gamertag, cross-game connectivity and standard voice chat/text messaging. Sony’s online approach at the outset was very PC-like, with each game’s online setup being determined by the developer. Yoshida now admits that not unifying the console’s online network during the early years is why “people see the difference when they compare Xbox Live and PSN (now).”

So what can Yoshida offer to the saddened Sony faithful? A promise that cross-game voice chat in the works? A centralized party system to make online play more pleasant? The obliteration of Home? Ehrm…Yoshida then talks about making the PlayStation Store a more integral part of the PS3 experience. He also suggests “integrating existing sites like Facebook” into the mix, and states that SCE “should really continue to look at adding and improving” the online features of the PlayStation Network.

Well… at least we got dynamic themes, right?