PSN overhaul’ coming this year

SCEA’s VP of product marketing Scott Steinberg has revealed that Sony may go further in its changes to PSN that it has

previously announced

– stating that the service will be "overhauled" later this year.

Steinberg even goes so far as hinting that that movie and TV services may arrive on PS3 before 2008 is out.

Speaking to GameDaily, Steinberg also talked up the significance of Blu-Ray’s victory in the next-gen DVD format war, calling it a huge win” for Sony over Microsoft.

When asked when PS3 owners can expect an PSN that features such as a friends list and downloadable movies, Steinberg said:

2008. I think it’s not a shock to think of 2008 as important for two reasons. One, the software line-up, the standards discussion is past us. The software line-up is here. I think we’re at the point to say we’re ecstatic about what we have in 2008. It’s finally to the point where there are no standards uncertainties, so consumers now can evaluate us on the skills and attributes of our line-up, and we’ve got an incredibly diverse line-up.

On the network side, we’ve stated that we’re in a closed beta now for Home, we’ll be rolling out functionality later this year, both for the Network and making Home public to others. So 2008 is going to be the year where both on the service side as well as on a Blu-Ray side, you’re going to see everything that we’ve got.

"And what’s interesting to me is that the Blu-Ray side represents such big blockbuster type games and the Network has the potential for start-up products, entrepreneurial games that are smaller, more affordable and I think represent a different kind of creativity than the Uncharteds or Resistance 2s or the LittleBigPlanets.”

And on the subject of HD-DVD’s death, Steinberg added:

"It just winds up escalating the installed base growth. Even if we look at PS2 owners who were on the fence or sidelines waiting, ‘Do I upgrade? What’s with all this Blu-Ray? I don’t want to buy a dead format’ – it gives them every reason to jump into marketplace.

"So I think it’s a huge win and it gives us a lot of momentum and also gives us momentum to stop talking about standards and start talking about games.”