Sony and Microsoft are two companies engaged in a bitter battle for domination of hardcore gamers, who prefer only the most high-end technology and services. Although we have seen a lot of statements made by the two rivals and meant to mock each other, in what concerns users, this war brought them a lot of benefits, namely, it has resulted in a lot of new features coming to their consoles.

Some of the most important improvements were made to the online services the two companies provide, as Sony is preparing the launch of the PlayStation Home, a service meant to represent each and every PS3 user and help him interact with others, whereas Microsoft has just launched the New Xbox Experience, which is a major revamping of its user interface, meant to offer a lot of features and services to the Xbox 360 owners.

Phil Harrison, the former head of Sony Worldwide Studios, who departed from the company in March to join game developer Atari, has recently talked about these new online services and it seems he has some very interesting words about both of them. Although he says that the Home project, which started under his guidance, has been very well done, he is quite impressed with Microsoft's NXE.

Sony has “brilliantly realized their ambitions” and “will have a very successful platform,” says Harrison, who then moves on to the NXE. “I was quite impressed actually with some of the things that Microsoft has done,” he said. “They're just scratching the surface of what the whole industry recognises is that customisation, socialisation and community platforms are going to be just as important as the games themselves.”

Some very kind words, which prove that, although Home will be an innovative service, Sony still has a long way to go in order to reach the level of popularity that the NXE has. Let's just hope that this online battle will result in more features implemented for the user and that everyone will be happy with the final outcome.