The console war is full of bitter fights in which every company tries to show to the world that its product is the best and has the most features. As such, the major manufacturers, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, are trying to introduce new services in order to make their products more attractive on the market.

In this context, Sony has recently launched the open beta stage of its new online service, PlayStation Home, specifically developed for its PlayStation 3 console. The service aims to be a meeting ground for every PS3 owner on Earth, where they can interact with people they know and make new friends in a fun and ever-changing environment.

This has recently sparked the curiosity of several companies in the United Kingdom, which began testing the Home service in order to see if they can replace the usual teleconference calls with this new virtual world. Nothing interesting up until now, but it seems that Microsoft, Sony's arch rival, was also in on the tests that were being made by the Advanced Workplace Associates company.

After hearing such news, it seems that the North American company didn't want its image associated with Sony's product and issued a statement in which it denied the fact that it had used the online Home service. The press release then went on to say that Microsoft had its own virtual meeting programs, like the Xbox Live Party, which it uses for small meetings.

“Microsoft will not be using Home as a tool for virtual meetings,” read the press release. “With fantastic Microsoft-developed products and applications like Live Meeting and even Xbox Live Party, we have everything we need to host a virtual meeting in-house.” 

So it now seems that financial industry companies Ernst & Young and Merrill Lynch are the only participants in the test supervised by Dr Nipan Maniar and Manish Malik from Portsmouth University. Although the services developed by Microsoft are pretty good, it seems that the innovations brought by Home might make it more popular with other companies.