February 15, 2006:According to well-placed industry sources, PlayStation HUB will offer PlayStation 3 owners much the same services as Xbox Live, including chat, downloadable demos, independent games and online play. The service is also designed to support PSP online play as well as PS3. It's a departure from PlayStation 2's online strategy, widely regarded as vastly inferior to Microsoft's.

PlayStation HUB is being described to developers as a 'subscriber service' suggesting a monthly charge. We understand the service is being created by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, although this is unconfirmed.

Sony boss Howard Stringer is pushing for all media content to be available for distribution over PlayStation HUB, such as music and movies, thus opening up a powerful iTunes-like distribution network for Sony.

 
September launch

Developer sources are also suggesting that PlayStation 3 is currently scheduled to launch in September. A launch games release schedule seen by our sources states a September launch. Although the schedule does not explicitly state a hardware launch date, nor a launch territory, we understand Japan and U.S will both see the machine in September.

Some in the industry have taken this as a lead to speculate that September 16 would be a launch date in Japan (a Saturday before a national holiday) followed by September 21 in the U.S. These dates are not confirmed and, as always, launch dates are subject to constant revision.

A spokesperson for SCEA said the company does not comment on rumors. However, we understand Sony is preparing to announce HUB some time in the next few weeks.