Sony may have won the format war with Blu-Ray against HD-DVD. They may have blockbuster games coming out with the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4, Haze and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. PSN may be free to use, but above all, there is one feature that fans have been crying out for since day one. This feature is of course In-game XMB.

What this will enable users to do is to gain access to your friends list, messages and other features in XMB while playing a game. As of now, to look at messages you have to quit the game and then look in XMB. The same goes for looking to see who is on in your friends list. You can’t even speak to your friends via Bluetooth headset unless you’re in the same game as them. What makes this worse for Sony fans is that Xbox gamers are getting all of this plus more straight out the box.

Well this might be changing soon, because at last, we might have just received the closest hint yet that In-game XMB is coming soon. In fact it could be this summer.

Speaking to MCV, SCE UK boss Ray Maguire had this to say regarding hitting 1 Million PS3’s in the UK faster than the PSOne and PS2.

“Achieving one million PS3 sales faster than both PSOne and PlayStation 2 is even more gratifying considering PS3 is a premium product introduced at a premium price,” he told MCV.

His next comment is more interesting.

“Our momentum will continue with the introduction of in-game communication in the summer, firmware update 2.4 and the strongest line-up of games through our third party partners and our own studios. I’d personally like to thank our trade and business partners for helping us on the start of the PS3 journey.”

Well, as I said earlier, this is the biggest hint yet that In-game XMB may hitting the PS3 in the summer.

One other interesting note you should take with this comment is the “firmware update 2.4.” We are currently on 2.1. So does this mean we will be getting a couple of minor firmware updates soon? Again, this is up for debate but he does leave some hints for Sony fans to get there hopes up. Also, what about this rumored Home public beta or even full release coming soon? Could this be in these firmware updates before 2.4? There are a lot of questions that need answering…

Stay tuned to TheGameReviews.com for more news regarding Home, XMB, and firmware updates.