PS3 Ad Hoc Party Coming As Early As Next Week?

Japanese PlayStation 3 owners have been enjoying Ad Hoc Party for nearly a year now, but when will it arrive in North America? Maybe as early as next week?

That’s when fighting game Fate/Unlimited Codes releases for the PlayStation Portable, according to the official PlayStation.blog. That game’s trailer promises that PSP owners can “play online with Ad Hoc mode.” Fate/Unlimited Codes is one of the games that uses Ad Hoc Party for its online multiplayer in Japan, turning the PlayStation 3 into a multiplayer server for PSP games without an infrastructure mode built-in, so one might think it will do the same in America.

Sony Computer Entertainment recently trademarked Ad Hoc Party in the United States, a good indicator that it plans to introduce it to North American PS3 owners.

Granted, the trailer for Fate/Unlimited Codes may be out of date and we wouldn’t leave it up to the publisher of that game, Capcom, to determine the launch date of a Sony product. We were told at E3 this year that Ad Hoc Party support in the West was “in the works,” but weren’t given a release window.

We’ve reached out to Sony to get confirmation or clarification on the release date of Ad Hoc Party, but did not hear back before publishing.