The news has been around a little while now, but when we saw the PS3's PlayStation Home this afternoon it exceeded our expectations completely. The depth and attention to detail in the service is very impressive, and the fact that's it's going to be provided for free to all PS3 owners means it's near certain to create a MySpace phenomenon all of its own.
At first glance Home looks a bit like a (very pretty) MMO-style chat room. There's avatars running around, speech bubbles popping up and emotes being liberally flung every which way. Your own character in PlayStation Home can be customised at any time in an in-depth slider-based system not too dissimilar from Oblivions.
Interacting with other users is also ramped up from the usual text messages and emotes you'd expect to see. Home lets you stream music to other players or chat to them through a Bluetooth headset, as well as inviting them back to your pad for a spot of interior decorating.
And this is where Sony's Game 3.0 philosophy comes in to play; Home users can decorate their room however they like, with wallpaper, furniture tweaked to their desire and even the option to put hard drive pictures framed on the walls.
There's even a movie theatre for players to visit and it makes YouTube look very basic indeed. The lobbies, snack aisles and sticky seats of a real movie house are all there, except it's movie/games trailers and user-created content that's playing on the big screens. You can also visit specific cinema sections for various game publishers, including EA, THQ and Rockstar.
Because of this Home expectedly offers a huge potential for in-game advertising, including video bill boards with high-definition game trailers. We expect to see these explode later in the year.
Home also offers its own answer to the Xbox 360's achievements in the trophy room, which is where all your game-specific trinkets will land when you complete various in-game tasks. All of your game rewards can be sorted and displayed to your desire, with room for potentially hundreds of different games (the large trophy room looks more like the senate building from Star Wars).
Large-scale beta trials for PlayStation Home begin next month, with full launch currently planned for fall 2007. Unless there's a spectacular shortfall between now and when it launches, Home could to out to be the service that finally drives sales of Sony's next-gen console, and we cant wait to finger our virtual PSPs.
Comments
27 comments so far...
Anonymous on 8 Mar '07 said:
Finally, something worth taking note of the PS3 for. This does sound really good and the graphics look pretty impressive. Be interesting to see how it plays. Id also be interested to see how you enter text into the speach bubbles. Having to type onto an onscreen keyboard is no fun. Might be able to plug a USB keyboard in the back of course!
Looking forward to more information on this one.
g2dat on 8 Mar '07 said:
Hmmm...This actually looks quite good..kind of like Second Life on you console...make the Xbox Live interface look a little dull.
I wonder what the performance will be like, if Sony pull it off it could be big. This combined with a free online gaming service, web browising and video streaming from my PC that isn't tied to Windows, all add up to make the PS3 sound alot more appealing.
Now the just need to bring out some AAA games, drop the price, change the controller and get the online performance up to scratch and I’m sold !!
Mogs on 8 Mar '07 said:
Indeed. This is the first mildly interesting thing I've seen for the PS3.
Tyler on 8 Mar '07 said:
Just think you really want to play pool, but you don't have a pool table and no friends to play it with anyway!
You just log onto PSN Home and have a game of virtual pool with somebody!
The possibilities are endless...
AlbertStoots on 8 Mar '07 said:
Kinda makes Miis look a bit pathetic...
Anonymous on 8 Mar '07 said:
This looks DANGEROUS!!!!!!!
Dogen_D_Derrible on 8 Mar '07 said:
Interesting. I guess it was only a matter of time before one of the big players tried something like this. I mean, when all is said and done many MMO's are just big 3D chat rooms, so why not model a real chat room on that format?!
blackholes on 8 Mar '07 said:
This seems to be a decent cross between the sims, animal crossing and world of warcraft. Yet to be convinced that this is what 'gaming' is about (and yes i know the PS3 is a "multimedia unit"). It does sound interesting though.
yuzi87 on 8 Mar '07 said:
this reminds me of habbo hotel on the net which has been out for years, and i bet that the deafult furniture/clothes u get on it will be crap so they force you to buy more extras from their store its how they make their money
shellster2 on 8 Mar '07 said:
First off, I am very impressed by this in terms of graphics and ambition. But, and there's always a but, do you want to spend time playing in your virtual home or playing games? I also think it will possibly get frustrating having to spend time running or walking around to other areas to access new demos/games/trailers etc. This may well me a case of doing something because you can rather than you should. Despite that I'd like to give it a try.
nuggit3000 on 8 Mar '07 said:
People who like chat rooms, will like this, its a great way to interact with people, people who just want to play game, probably wont like this.
As for the tiresome walking around to find a demo, or dvd rental, I think that it would be foolish of sony to not give us a menu based alternative.
Anonymous on 8 Mar '07 said:
1 impression looks and sounds great. Something what ya would expect from sony.
But generaly nothing in life is realy free the more I think about the more it seems like a scam of sony to empty your pockets by providing a addicting (sims/2life-like) experience. (Will also need to buy myself a new key bord.
ranaraptor on 9 Mar '07 said:
this actually looks pretty good! Sony you've surprised me on this!
Chris_Eals on 9 Mar '07 said:
This is really surprising, I thought that Home would just be a tarted up Xbox Live interface but this is quite impressive.
There are a few things that I have concern about though...
Just how will it perform technically? Obviously the OS3 its-self will shift the graphics around no problem but how will it face with lots of people connected, in the early days of World of Warcraft Ironforge was given the nickname Lagforge because once it got busy it lagged so badly you could hardly get moved in there and I worry that this might end up the same.
Will it have lasting appeal? Or will we just get bored of it after a while, in a way its in the same boat as the Mii's as either or both may just end up as a gimmik that no-one cares about but this may force you to use it which leads on to...
Will there be a shortcut to get to movies and other things? Will there be an option to just flick through a menu when you can't be bothered legging it about a virtual area or will you have to walk through the Home 'world' every time?
I hope this is done properly and that Sony have considered all the aspects because if not it may well turn out to be a real mess.
martinh1979 on 10 Mar '07 said:
It looks good and should be interesting to see if people will become bored of it. I had something like that on my PC before which I downloaded. It was great fun at the beginning but MSN messenger was more convenient so never used it again.
Anonymous on 10 Mar '07 said:
finally glad to hear a positive response to good news!
mikeiskong on 11 Mar '07 said:
good concept, would like to see it actually in action. although i would just like to get on and play the games rather than walk round a virtual home. i can do that if i get up and walk round my house and round the block i'm sure i'll warm to it though. i still be waiting till some decent games come out for it though.
bennamin on 11 Mar '07 said:
ME LIKEY HOMEY! ME LIKEY HOMEY!
Eyhren on 21 Mar '07 said:
Miis are pathetic. so i pay £425 on a console (well not really) and all im gonna do with the console is have an online version of the sims at my disposal? id laff if this home thing overtakes all the PS3 launch titles and all the games fail coz evry1 is having a happy fun round of virtual pool with their sim buddies and dont actually buy the games. its a gaming revolution
magicmushrooms on 31 Mar '07 said:
i reckon this'll be big, u know like a chat room, but on a PS3. i think it beats teh hell out of wii and 360 (
pfft 
).
Besides, PS3 is the only console for me
tinhead on 20 Apr '07 said:
I thought of a wicked idea for home if they could do it.
Why not have a virtual cinema in there? No need to go and watch 300 at the cinema when a virtual you could go the cinema. You could watch it on the nice big HDTV without even leaving the house!
Hopefully it would be cheaper too.. you wouldnt have to be subsidising someone cleaning the cinema after you'd left.
You'd have to supply your own popcorn mind you...
and Nachos...
and sweets...
hmm.. not so convinced now
Deckers80 on 4 Jul '07 said:
home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 it looks gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 Its for everyonehome is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 home is gr8 I love Home
Anonymous on 4 Aug '07 said:
lynchy112 on 20 Feb '08 said:
please anser me this question is ps3 home out now for the ps3 because it is 08 now thx
alarx on 25 Mar '08 said:
stop being part of this brand war! embrace all consoles with open arms! they are there for your entertainment, their competition between eachother is a good thing as it gets you better things but if you dont like a particular console dont spend half your life on a forum slagging it off, just leave it. xbox has its thriving online community but was not tested well enough and frequently encounters the rrod. ps3 has blu-ray and blutooth capabilities but for a while lacked the big title games that a console needs to beome that popular and the wii is fun and has those nintendo only titles but you cant even play dvds on it. but home... yeh great idea. its free, you cant lose really can you? get bored dont use it, like it then use it all the time, concerns would be lag and load time for media but the whole concept is just amazing and im glad someone did it, as after all it is just for our enetrtainment.
slinkypocketz on 16 Apr '08 said:
Yeh sounds great but wait till you have to start buying things for your pad I.E Pool table, seats Etc.
James_Bond on 17 Jul '08 said:
FREEE FREEE even better lol
but will it be some HUGE download that takes for ever and takes up loads of hard drive or will u jst pop into it from the XMB