Great now Sony steals the mii system idea and incorporates it. Why should they be congradulated for once again taking another's idea and tweaking it a little bit to avoid lawsuits.

Actually no it's not. Games like Catz and Dogz have been flyaway cult games that just never sold well becuase no-one ever heard of them.

Nintendogs NOT owned! Well, it looks pretty cool, I guess, but I can't see me using this feature much.

If you can take care of a dog. (and cats) and put them on a leash... and walk them... and other people SEE your animal. that owns Nintendogs in my book.

Well they tweaked it a lot more than a little bit...

WOW!!! This has to be one of the biggest announcements Sony has made about the Playstation Network. Sony All The Way!!!

How can you even COMPARE this to a Mii? This is an AVATAR. A mii is not you. A mii is a mii. A mii is a shallow creation designed for protecting your identity online. I expected it to be alot like a Mii. This is an avatar. A mii you can do the face, and hair. The Sony avatar... looks like you can pick from dozens of faces, hair, eyes, etc. As well as dozens of clothes/accessories. I have trouble compareing the two.

Well, its not a rip-off of Miis + acheivements, but I think the coolest parts of this really do address some of the same concepts... Nintendo has the Miis in place, I don't think they really have to worry about the acheivement trophies (WAY cool, but probably not a selling point), and I don't think they have to worry about the content sharing (playing your music and videos for friends in your private space, etc... Again, way cool, but it'll never beat YouTube...) You have to pay to decorate your apartment, but I'm wondering how this will work... Is your apartment stored on your PS3? And so, you have to be online for other people to come visit it? Or is it uploaded to a server, so your friends list can all hang out at your place 24/7... That way, you can basically have a members-only virtual chatroom/game lobby, where everyone pitches in some cash to make it super posh. That would be much better, IMO. Considering you have to pay for the poor man's version of this with a 360, I think MS have really been handed their ass. But I think Nintendo are in a position to answer this, not with a unified service, but with new "channel" updates and with software, which extend on the Mii concept. And I honestly think LittleBigWorld is a very creative answer to some of Nintendo's key software, but again, Elebits was sharing user-created levels in December... Question is, who can turn a user-created content based game into a bona-fide killer app first? LittleBigWorld is slated for "early 2008", and Animal Crossing is supposed to be out this year (though I doubt it). All in all... Bravo Sony! They've basically addressed some of the unique advantages of both of thier competitors, and gone beyond that to raise the bar and give themselves a unique advantage. After Gundam failed to matter in the overall console wars in Japan, Sony needed something BIG. And they delivered. Problem is, this doesn't solve the unique problems of PS3. If Nintendo and even MS can address this over time, and continue having a better value based on software libraries, this won't be enough.

I'm sure it does. Fortunately, your book does not often mirror reality. Nintendogs is not 'owned' by some speculated feature on the PS3. Nintendogs is for the DS, a portable system, which means it doesn't compete with home consoles anyway. Besides, what exactly leads you to believe this feature will 'own' Nintendogs, besides the fact that 'other people SEE your animal?'

So basically, you answer your own question. No matter how childish the outcome may be, the Mii IS supposed to represent you, the user, hence the name "mii." And I highly, highly doubt that the PS3 Home pets are going to go very in depth like Nintendo's Nintendogs. You do more than just walk it on the DS. It can also communicate with other DS systems, so other people can SEE your pet as well.