Sony’s online president Smed has posted an article on his blog in which he refutes statements that Microsoft blogger Ozymandias made in his blog.

In this statement he tells us that the Xfire API in Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom is absolutely free and that Xfire is not a replacement for the PS3’s friends list (as reported before on Playstatic). Smed states that this is something over and above that.

He also tells us that Sony has several MMO’s in development for the PS3 that are cross platform with the PC and that they are working up new ways for these players to communicate with each other (ways like online keyboard interfaces, voice-to-text and other ideas).

Here are the most important parts of the article and if you’re really interested you can read the entire article over at Smed’s blog.

From the very beginning the team at Sony Computer Entertainment has always had a very open view of the the networked Playstation 3. This is showcased in our game Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. We’ve been able to integrate Xfire’s new PS3 API into the game very easily (I should also point out that this API is absolutely free… no clue where Ozymandias got that info but it’s just plain wrong). What this is going to do is allow an already huge network of online gamers on the PC continue to track their Xfire friends already as they play our (and other games in the future) PS3 game.

This is not a replacement for the PS3 friends list.

Online console games are going to be huge. They’re growing at an extremely rapid rate and we already have several MMO’s in development for the PS3 that are cross platform with the PC. We’re working on cool new ways to allow people to communicate (online keyboard interfaces, voice-to-text and other ideas). The power of the PS3 is going to allow us to bring a lot of computing power to bear on the challenges of communicating with other players. To me the idea of an online universe of gamers as large as 100 Million or more is really exciting and is going to end up really allowing all kinds of awesome games.

Smed

Sony’s online president with a blog of his own, might this just become Sony’s Major Nelson?