Sony: No comment on online PlayStation service rumors

Foster City (CA) - This afternoon, a spokesperson for Sony Computer Entertainment declined comment for TG Daily with regard to a story that the company would be launching an online PlayStation service in concert with PlayStation 3, to compete with Microsoft’s Xbox Live. "No comments" aren’t generally too interesting, but this one is unique : It characterized as "rumor" a story that appeared in the Official PlayStation Magazine which, although published by the VU Games division of Ziff-Davis Media, is positioned as being sanctioned by Sony CEA.

As we reported yesterday, a scan of the first page of a story containing what Sony CEA now calls a "rumor," was posted to Sony’s own online PlayStation forum. The story is clearly written as though it were spreading a rumor, quoting an unnamed source who, himself, quotes an unnamed source, in a passage that immediately follows a reference to the president of the CEA division, though not by name. Conceivably, had the story not been published as a rumor but as a press release, it might not have received this much attention.