Just found this - it details much more of how Home works: http://www.scedev.net/home/Third%20Party%20Relations%20Q%26A.pdf ... I find it really interesting that Home does NOT run off Sony's servers - it runs off YOUR PS3. This solves many of the distributed issues with it - but also means you have to be running home, for someone to connect/join your little virtual world. With a 50-person limit, not sure how Sony is going to use this for "launches" or anything else substantial (maybe more people when running from their server). It a lot of ways, HOME is just a 3D game lobby/app launcher. Its much less substantial than I thought (was expecting a persistent world, where you could visit other apartments and people at anytime ). Still - its a starting point. Its obviously something that will improve and evolve over time. PS - it also looks like an easy way for Sony to charge for ANYTHING. Advertising, virtual/real items, etc. And they control every aspect of the system.

The P2P nature will almost surely cause extremely poor performance in many cases. And as mentioned detracts from any value there to the extent that your PS3 has to be on and presumably in Home for anyone else to view your content (bet they are wishing they'd implemented a Wii-esq low-power net-enabled standby mode)

No... that's not quite the extent that I got. I got the. Your home/content/etc. is on YOUR PS3. Meaning when you log off... it's gone. When you log on. Pop, it's back. They say they plan on fixing that. As for the networking, I think it's a centralized server, and you only see the people on your friends list. (thus you dont get stuck with assholes attacking you for no reason.) if their on your friends list, You meet them. If their not... you dont. It's quazi P2P. ;) This is your friends list, and the people you will meet in HOME. That isnt too big of a problem if you ask me. All sony needs to do is let you have more friends on your friends list. (not hard) Persistent world is coming, and you can visit your friends apartments/stuff when their on. And sony said they are working on making it persistent.

I just wanna say if you read all of that. It's amazing. The 'lobbys' are centralized. EG: Sony, EA, UBI, etc. That would run on their server. Then any of the people on your friends list there... will be seen there. The content you receive, would come from the 'lobby' server. And the advertisements, would pay for the lobby servers bandwidth. This looks TOTALLY AWESOME.

I'm waiting to hear how well it works in real use before I make any real judgement on the system ... Everything from HD videos to ingame assets has to be downloaded from somewhere ... even with good servers you would anticipate loading times for large portions of the content; depending on your connection you could end up waiting through long loading times which might limit the value.

Says much about the PS3 when the interface for launching games is more exciting than the games.

"Currently Home is not a persistent world, so when you leave Home, all of your possessions go with you. For instance, it is not currently possible for other users to visit your apartment while you're not there. We are working on the persistent aspect of Home, and expect to implement it in the long term." So this system is useless to compare achievements. You can only visit when they are online.

Yeah, but I'm guessing not too many users will probably want to visit someone's home if they're not there...

How are they going to compare achievements? Also, just read this gem. "Q: Can you enter, say, MotorStormâ„¢ quickly through Home without having to travel to the specific MotorStormâ„¢ lobby? Currently, users can find each other in Home, and then arrange to go off and play MotorStormâ„¢ at the same time. Eventually, users will be able to meet in Home and seamlessly launch into a game of MotorStormâ„¢. Similarly, users will be able to exit to Home directly from the game" So, if I am playing MotorStorm and want to find someone to play online with I need to leave the game, goto HOME, find a friend and meet in the GAMES LOBBY in HOME to play again. Xbox Live invite service is lightyears ahead of this. Hey Sony, keep it simple.

Well, "connections" are obviously done through the Sony server - as everyone logs into that, then can connect to other machines. But I suspect you actually have to be "RUNNING" Home for people to get access (it says people can't see your apartment unless you are there). So you effectively act as the server - once you log off, or the connection drops - it dies. (whether this is gatewayed through a Sony server, I don't know or think is relevant). Imagine you decorate your apartment with some locally added wallpapers (I presume you can do this...). So if anyone joins your apartment, all this "custom" content has to be sent to their PS3 - from your PS3. Performance is going to significantly depend on uplink rates that people have. I can imagine that sometimes it could take minutes (or longer) to load someone's apartment (maybe it will be like a web browser - you get a "frame" appearing for an image, until it loads in the background - that would make more sense). Another bonus for this entire system - as its limited to friends only (i.e. people you have invited), the type of content is irrelevant. Porn becomes a non-issue. Its going to depend on the sort of mechanism they have to allow "friends" to sign-up. Can you meet someone in a lobby, have a quick chat to them - then get access to their apartment? Can you leave stuff there, or send them messages? Its all interesting.