Sony Patches Speech Right Out of Home

The PlayStation Blog reports today that the latest patch to PlayStation Home eliminates voice chat.  Although there is no direct reason given, the PS Blog states:

"Additionally, as part of version 1.04, the voice chat feature within PlayStation Home will be temporarily suspended. As soon as we are ready to resume the voice chat feature, we will inform you via PlayStation.com and PlayStation.Blog. In the meantime, we encourage users to make use of the Wireless Keypad for PLAYSTATION 3 or any USB or Bluetooth-enabled keyboard for text chat and also the “phone friend” features to communicate within PlayStation Home."

Don't like it?  Lump it - using a wireless keyboard instead of screaming "HOW YOU DOIN" at random "ladies" in Home may seem a little primative to some, but I, for one, welcome silencing as many jerkoffs as possible.

Comments from the PlayStation Blog are a bit less than friendly, but both points of view (pro-voice chat and anti-voice chat) seem to be well represented:

"Man, you guys really piss me off. Stop dropping the ball and get it together please. I really love my PS3 but I hate that HOME is like the launch all over again."

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I’ll keep up on the news but it seems like we are still months off from full functionality."

"I hope voice chat was only removed for technical reasons. Disappointing, how the best features keep getting nixed. (I’m looking at you streaming music/video from hdd)."

"What with all the idiots cursing and using racial slurs and trying to pick up virtual women on the Internet, I think home would be much more peaceful that way."

--- (Edited on 12/18/2008 2:56 pm [GMT-0600] by larsoncc) ---