Imagine seeing your Facebook friends' pictures on wanted posters in Red Dead Redemption, or plastered across billboards in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. A recent Facebook integration update for the PlayStation 3 could make such features a reality.
The 3.50 PlayStation 3 firmware update enabled 3D Blu-ray movie playback, but it also opened up a whole new level of connectivity between Facebook and Sony's console. Previously the PS3 could connect to Facebook enough to allow you to post messages or browse and edit your photos. Now the console has access to everything in your Facebook profile, should you let it.
"We've pretty much opened up the entire Facebook API to our game developers," says Eric Lempel, Sony Computer Entertainment's vice president of network operations. "They're able to pull any piece of information from Facebook, as well as push information out to Facebook."
Armed with such tools, developers could create PlayStation 3 games that connect to Facebook more intimately than any other console.
Your photos can be integrated into games. Your friends and family's names and likenesses would be available for everything from naming random non-player characters in a role-playing game to having their faces mapped onto opponents in a fighting game.
The changes also mean integrating Facebook applications with PlayStation 3 games is easier than ever before.
Sony expects titles utilizing this new level of integration with Facebook to come out by the end of the year.
Facebook And PlayStation Take Their Friendship To The Next Level [Forbes]