How PS3 Facebook integration may work
Look forward to boss fights with your cat.
Sony has explained how the Facebook integration quietly introduced to PlayStation 3 by firmware 3.50 might manifest itself in future games.
Last month Sony released the update, highlighting new support for Blu-ray 3D discs and a Grief Reporting Function, but it's the Facebook stuff that has developers most tickled according to SCE's vice president of network operations, Eric Lempel.
"We've pretty much opened up the entire Facebook API to our game developers," Lempel told Forbes. "They're able to pull any piece of information from Facebook, as well as push information out to Facebook."
Obviously this has to be done with your permission (well, in theory - it's Facebook so who bloody knows), but Lempel said it means that one day you could be cruising down a videogame street when you spy your friend's face on a billboard. Or perhaps you'll be fighting a boss and it will be your mum.
No cynics are quoted in the report. Were they quoted, perhaps they would suggest that billboards would have adverts for books, music and films similar to the ones stored in your Facebook favourites lists. Those cynics.
One man who is quoted though is Gareth Davis, a platform manager for Facebook who looks after games (or "overseas games" as Forbes puts it - a fabulous proofing error to our minds, and we're specialists). "Our focus with the integration is to promote the next-generation of social," he explained. Yarr.