Doom, Gloom Looms For PSP Room

Sony has canned plans for its online PSP service, "Room," a concept scaled down from the PlayStation 3's online virtual environment, PlayStation Home, the company's Japanese arm said today. Announced just over six months ago at last year's Tokyo Game Show, Room was to feature cartoonish avatars gathering together in virtual rooms to chat, write blog posts, customize their appearance, share pictures, and participate in other social activities. While no release date was ever announced for the program, and it was never confirmed for the North American market, Sony had been running a closed user beta test of Room. That test was ended with a brief Sony statement revealing the cancellation of Room's development. Sony gave no specific rationale for the move, only saying that it would continue to develop networked services for PlayStation 3 and PSP, and that it would take Room beta user feedback into account going forward.