(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); A post on the N4G forums has rumors swirling that PlayStation 3 cross-game voice chat was held back due to threats made by EA. Kotaku spoke to EA and Sony regarding this rumor.

The post, written by N4G forum-goer Super_Secret who claims to be a Sony employee, explains that Cross-Game voice chat ran into a snag because certain games from "A rather large company" wouldn't support the feature. He refers back to trouble including custom soundtracks to work in earlier PlayStation 3 firmware revisions. According to Super_Secret, PS3 titles have to be developed with custom soundtrack support, and one of this big company's more popular titles wouldn't support it.

When they found out that a new firmware update was going to suddenly make one of their games look inferior to just about every other game released, they protested. A lot. They threatened everything, from legal action to dropping support for the PS3 all together.

The post goes on to suggest that a similar situation occurred with cross-game chat, causing our tips line to fill up with angry emails, one of which even referred to the situation as a "Potential WATERGATE of the videogame industry."

While the poster doesn't mention EA by name, a coded message later in the thread makes the company he or she is implicating perfectly clear once translated (thanks streetmagix for the translation from Base64):

" It's not Activision. It's not Ubisoft. It's not Capcom. It's not Insomniac. It's not Konami. It's not Take 2. It's not Midway. It's not Squaresoft. are wE All getting the picture yet? One point I want to reiterate - there's a difference between the games that didn't work with in-game XMB and the games that DID work with in-game XMB but DIDN'T work well with custom soundtracks, so stop picking out the ones that simply didn't do in-game XMB. Also, it wasn't just ONE game that caused this, either. Although one title does come to mind and it wasn't even what you or I would call a "Big" game. I'll give you a hint: HPatOofP. "

Rather than jump to conclusions, we decided to contact the two parties involved for comment on the situation. First to respond was Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of corporate communication. "Not no-how, not no-way did that ever happen. This is a total fabrication – total nonsense. We think voice chat is an extremely cool feature and added it to Madden/ PS3." Brown then added, "We support cross-game voice on other systems and would be happy to do that on any console."

Soon after Brown responded to our inquiry, Sony's senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold also responded, keeping things short and sweet. "This is rumor and frankly not true. "

I suppose it's up to the reader to determine what they believe, but I'm leaning towards the rumor being utter nonsense. Two responses from EA and Sony both were far from the 'no comments' and 'not responding to rumors and speculation' I've come to expect in situations like these.

Ht up the link to read through the full forum post, and thanks to everyone who sent in the tip.

Cross game chat and why it's currently MIA.

great info

Dont mean to sound like a noob, but wtf is a cross game chat?

Well it allows you to talk to people with out being in same lobby (CoD4 as example) You can be on one game and your friend can be on another game and you guys can still communicate! Its actually quite cool and i think the PS3 needs to get it soon.

if you want it soon get rid of PS3 and get xbox b/c it doesnt sounds like it will be comming soon if at all

Man I'm already not happy with the ps3 they said all this stuff about it being the superior consol but I bought a ps3 to play VIDEO GAMES Im a gamer why does xbox get all these cool features and sony's been holding out on us for years now I'm praying it's just rumor but it sounds like the xbox360 should have been the system I bought.

xbox cod5 has alot more features to it then ps3 does. I'm so close to selling my ps3 and never supporting sony again they dont realize that there customers are getting sick and tired of this, just add music while in game and cross game voice chat is it really that damn weak that the xmb cant even support these features.

Its pretty much the same as an Xbox live party if you know what that is.

And, basically that huge thread was just saying that the "Sony Employee" didn't actually work for Sony?

I might invest in another console

Well, I'm kinda bummed that it's not going to happen, but it will hopefully happen sooner or later.