"I think MMOs are going to be a real strong selling point for the PS3 long term — there"s going to be some great ones on the PS3. You"re not going to find "The Agency" on the [Xbox] 360," Smedley told The Seattle Times.

Perhaps it"s not just his direct affiliation with Sony that"s talking up the MMO potential on Sony"s console. The PlayStation 3 boasts a more open online environment that"s more appealing to some purveyors of multiplayer gaming and online content, at least when compared to the closed Xbox Live.

One third-party MMO developer that has sworn loyalty to PS3 is NCsoft, traditionally a PC game maker, which publishers Guild Wars and City of Heroes.

In 2007, NCsoft exec Robert Garriott explained why NCsoft had decided to ink a deal to bring MMOs to PS3.

"The ideal system would be an extremely capable, stable platform, with the best Internet connectivity and greatest freedom of web access and interaction available to the user," he said. "This combination of access, openness and ability to bring NCsoft to the console market is very attractive. In this case, we felt like Sony fit the bill."

Xbox 360 isn"t without its MMO prospects. Funcom is currently developing Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures for Xbox 360 as well as PC.

But Microsoft also recently canned one anticipated MMO for Xbox 360, Marvel Universe, which would"ve presumably starred revered comic book characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men.

Other developers are vying to make successful MMOs for consoles. One particularly interesting project is the cops-and-robbers MMO All Points Bulletin (a.k.a. "APB") from Realtime Worlds, the studio behind the well-received open-world Xbox 360 game Crackdown. It"s slated for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 for release in 2008.

“There is no grind in [APB],” said David Jones, creator of the original Grand Theft Auto and APB design lead during this year"s Game Developers Conference. “Players will come back again and again because the gameplay is fun, not because they are working their way through a grind.”