Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oInP2DAa3BA&mode=related&search=

It's a hell of a service. It looks like it leaves Second Life in the dust. Also a great marketing tool and money maker (infact a little too much marketing and money making). This is easily the best thing the PS3 has going for it.

P.S. If this was ready at launch, I have a feeling the PS3 would have been doing a fair bit better right now 

Yes ,very cool ....and for free .

If they couple this with two or three killer games and a price drop for christmas the PS3 can start to live up to its expectations .

Home looks very nice but all of this marketing stuff and licensing issues makes me worry about it.

I don't know why (can't put my finger on it... :P), but Im not impressed (only watched the first min or so).

Many, many moons ago developers realised that implementing a "3rd environment" as a general "menu browsing interface" - sucked arse. No one wants to spend ages *physically walking* from the bowling machine, to the pool table, to the arcade machine. You also end up with a bunch of generally unpolished games, with poor interface, long loading times (etc) in a virtual world. Basically thiings you tinker with - not serious games you actually play.

I understand and appreciate the idea of virtual content - and populating your virtual home with this content. Its graphical, pretty cool, and allows the user to be creative in terms of placement, colours, items, etc (assuming home actually allows you to do this stuff? and things are not just fixed location?).

There had better be HEAPS of free content as well - not just a few token items, with everything else to be "purchased" (maybe some people are into this, but I would *never* spend physical money on virtual assets - games are one thing, a new couch cover/texture is another). Otherwise so much for "free" HOME - the shell is free, but you need to pay for anything to actually use the service properly.

But if Sony expect people to WASTE their time walking around in a virtual world - instead of using a simple menu driven interface - good luck to them.

I really like the idea behind it, specially for the achievements.

They could have so much fun with it.

The (unrealistic) example I keep thinking of is the Berzerker award from Gears of War. What if, when you receive the award you can pull out a Berzerker and unleash it in a public space. You would see avatars running away, getting trampled and dissappearing in bloody little puffs as the Berzerker ran through everything.

 If you look at Home as just a gussied up menu, then it is a Waste. But I don't see it that way at all. So far it looks fairly similar to Second Life, which so far has 5 million registered users. People aren't going to use it to get to their games and movies, they're going to use it just for the sake of using it. And a lot of poor saps are going to dump tons of money into it trying to get the fanciest apartment around.

It's also going to be a festering crockpot of hormones. overweight male teenage hormones... Many of which pretending to be women.

Yes, I'm 14/f/japanese

I would make my avatar look younger, but you have to look 18+. But I have noodie picks in my bedroom. *wink wink* I only like girls tho.

Ok. Enough of that. Before this posts gets more rediculus.

Home is about exactly that. Being your home. You get on your PS3, and your buddy is online, waiting around for some of his buddies. You say. "HEY!" Join up with him, and admire his beautiful mansion. Look how great and nice it is!

You could spend hours talking, decorating, playing the arcade games, ETC. Waiting to get enough people together to play something together... Just the group of you. It's not about the games. It is like a MMO. World of WarCraft sucks. Yet it's the biggest MMO. Why? People join it because people say how great it is. It's not that great. MMOs are communial games, and people LOVE them. In the end you would be happy with the same type of thing in a "table tennis" room, choosing to play diffrent difficutles.

Basically my point is. MMOs are about the social. Home is about the Social.

Home is doing a 2nd life+match-makeing service.

Hmmmm. I don't know much about Second Life - but I thought that the main draw card is that you can create *any* content you want - for free? You just have to buy 'property' or something? I see HOME as a much more restricted version (or is this wrong? Can you create/upload/add anything you want?)

 MMO's are about gameplay - within a social/online community. That's why some of them suck and some don't - the gameplay/cost/rules determine these factors.

Is there anything you actually DO in HOME? I guess Sony can add this stuff later as needed? Surely a decent, online version of GTA would be MUCH more compelling than HOME would? Or any decent sand-box style game?

Will have to wait until get see some details of "Animal Crossing Wi" (hope it includes Mii's)? Be curious to see how this compares - even an online version of "MySims" (current version is offline?) seems to have significant building/customisation caps. Anyway, getting off topic - just want to compare :)

To be fair, they have not announced what online functions MySims will have.  And we also need to know more about Home's capabilities before making any assumptions as to how important it will be for the PS3.  All we can do for now is try to make assumptions or spread some more F.U.D.. :o