So the copier has become the copied, how very ironic.

If it's a virtual place that you could go and hang out and talk to other virtual avatars, and then say, "hey, let's go play some Gears, or Halo 3," or whatever game you want. That would be pretty cool. But if it's a direct Home or Myspace type ripoff, I'm not sure it would work.

What I think they should do is allow players who don't have the actual game to spectate, and watch other people play it. I think that would really drive up sales, because it would allow people to spectate games that they might never think of buying, and if they like it they would have to purchase it to play it.

Those comments are very vague. Whatever they may be doing, will probably not be much like Home at all. Very likely it will increase PC/360 connectivity though.

I agree, if its like something you stated in your first paragraph then that would be cool, but Microsoft wouldn't be stupid and make a clone off of Home, now that would be really dumb, But what they should do is reinvent some things that would make Xbox Live even newer then what it is right now. Now that would be a huge increase for Live. But then again Live is the best online interface ever so really Microsoft can do what they want.

I'm barely enthusiastic anymore about Home b/c it keeps getting moved back. I'm even barely enthusiastic at its success at its goal, as a marketing tool for Sony products, and online marketers.

A hastily made copy of something that is doubtful in the first place is going to fail miserably, that is if Microsoft ever decides to put this Home-lookalike out. Personally, I don't see the point of microsoft investing the huge amounts of $$$$$$$, time and thought needed to make an online environment work when they've missed their chance to really make this work. If MS wanted to do this, and do it right, they would already have started working on this BEFORE the 360 launched so that it would do its marketing magic for the majority of the life of the console instead of just 3-4 years

Dayum, MS really wants Sony dead, huh?

Although I think the whole virtual world idea isn't that good, Microsoft has a huge advantage in making this a far more interesting and useful service.

In theory Microsoft can produce a virtual world that works on the XBox 360, PC, PDAs and mobile phones in such a way that it integrates with MSN messenger and XBox Live. If it was free (or low enough cost) they would have the benefit of generating far more interest because it already would work on platforms that people owned.

 im sorry but that is following in one's footsteps if you copy their ideas and use them in your own design. Hopefully Sony has enough copyrights on Home to sue the crap out of Microsoft if this is real. Microsoft really deserves it after making a faulty console and trying to standardize pirating software. 

 no.. they will charge like its rumored that they are considering charging for the XP Service Pack 3.