Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim has today attacked Sony's PlayStation 3 Home service, explaining that he has doubts that Microsoft's rival can produce a compelling virtual environment. In an interview with Shack News, the corporate vice president also stated that the PlayStation Network was not even in the same league as Xbox Live.

"I doubt [Sony's] ability to implement it and execute it in a really rich and compelling way," commented Kim.

"PlayStation Network is not Xbox Live, it's not even close. To think about layering [Home] on top of that – wow. The hardest part is not even creating the system, it's regulating the behaviour and all of that too. That's a massive investment in infrastructure," he said.

In another subtle insult, Kim added that Microsoft has no plans to produce a similar virtual world for its Xbox Live service. He said that it would entail too much work for a consumer who doesn't necessarily want that type of feature (smacks of enforced Blu-ray? - Ed).

"I don't think we need anything like that. I've spent some time with the Linden Lab guys [developers of Second Life]. To try to build Second Life on Xbox Live – or YouTube, Facebook, any of those big social networking services – it's a lot of work," detailed Kim.

"I actually believe that most gamers will always find more value in what we have on Xbox Live and now Games for Windows Live and how we're building that out. That's what I think is a much better approach, and that's what our approach is going to be."