Talks of an in-game XMB are so frequent that we've got a keyboard macro dedicated to the phrase, but the waiting will finally be over this summer, according to SCEE big shot Ray Maguire.
Speaking to MCV of his glee at PS3 having reached 1 million sales faster than both the PSOne and PS2, Maguire said: "Our momentum will continue with the introduction of in-game communication in the summer, firmware update 2.4 and the strongest line-up of games through our third party partners and our own studios."
In-game XMB access is a must because at the moment you can't access your friends list during a game, which is nothing short of madness.
But the gem in that statement - the imminent arrival of "in-game communication", should rectify these issues and the confirmation of a "summer" release helps to nail down the previously vague "2008" promise.
We wonder what other goodies will be in Firmware 2.4, and we also wonder when we became such firmware geeks. Read our huge '10 Steps to Perfect PS3 Firmware' feature to see what we mean.