According to the PS Blog the Vita allows users to have voice chat, even if playing different games:

Party – Fancy a chat while you’re gaming? Speak with your friends anytime you like with Party. The voice and text chat application allows you to talk to up to eight party members, no matter what you’re doing. Party also allows you to set up and jump in multiplayer games and chat with Friends while you play different games, bringing cross-game chat to PS Vita.

Does no one else find it a bit odd that this service is available on the Vita but not the PS3? Cross-game chat has been the most requested PSN feature for years.

They came out the other day saying why it wasn't on the PS3. Something about there not being enough RAM or something? I don't know exactly but it was something like that..

@mercutio123 said:

They came out the other day saying why it wasn't on the PS3. Something about there not being enough RAM or something? I don't know exactly but it was something like that..

That's exactly it. It sucks, sure, but there's nothing we can do.

At least they know it's an important feature and it'll be in the next PlayStation. For now it's something I've gotten used to not having. There's not much they can do about it, since they didn't design with it in mind and apparently didn't leave enough RAM overhead to make it an option.

@mercutio123: Oh really? Weird. I guess this stuff is harder to fit in after games have already been produced for specific hardware...

I used to be fairly on top of these things, but I realised constantly refreshing Kotaku was becoming unhealthy. Been cold turkey for several months!

It is crappy. It's the main reason I never buy multiplatform titles for PS3.

Does no one else find it a bit odd that this service is available on the Vita but not the PS3?

Dumb feature is dumb. Vita will be a day one purchase and this is something I will never use.

I get people use this feature but personally, from using skype as a replacement for cross game chat once, I found it annoying as hell. I don't understand why you would want to sit down and play a game with 5 people in your ear.

It's been known since Gamescom (or was it TGS? I forget). You could kind of get cross game chat on PS3 games as well by using remote play to play PS3 games on the Vita (They showed off Killzone 3 running fairly well on the Vita)  if you wanted to get really super crazy and need cross-game chat no matter what.

*ps3, stupid phone.

I find it surprising that this is a 'feature'