PlayStation 3 Home Revealed

During a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison outlined Sony's plans to extend the online and social capabilities of PlayStation 3. PlayStation Home, set to launch later in 2007, will offer PS3 users an interactive living space in which they can place furniture and decorations purchased or downloaded freely through the PlayStation Network via a virtual PSP device within the environment. You can see Home in action in this Playstation 3 Home video on FileShack. Harrison introduced Home as a facet of what Sony calls "Game 3.0," which the company sees as the current era of connecting gaming. "This is not something we want to claim as a copyright," Harrison noted. "We want everyone to add to this." In that vein, the presentation slide illustrating Game 3.0 included photographs of not only the PS3 and Sony's own PSP, but also Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii, though the PlayStation Home initiative does not involve competing consoles. Home will be a free download to PS3 and is launched from the system's Xross Media Bar. After some brief technical difficulties, Harrison demonstrated the service by creating a realistic human avatar to inhabit the Home environment. Character creation is similar to that of certain MMOs as well as Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, allowing players to specify a variety of facial characteristics and proportions. Like furniture, some character clothing is freely downloadably, while some will be paid premium downloads. Additionally, some items will be unlocked simply by playing particular PS3 games. The Home environment showcased during the presentation was a fully furnished apartment with a variety of mini-game-like social features. Among other activities, players can go bowling, play arcade games, watch movie trailers or other video content on in-world TVs, invite other PS3 owners to bring their own avatars into the apartment. Interaction with other players is conducted via a predictive text fragment system, a virtual keyboard, or voice chat, along with a variety of expressive character animations. Other players visiting an apartment will have music and video being played on the apartment owner's virtual home theater streamed to their own PS3s, with proximity-based volume. A separate room houses players' trophy collection. Much like Achievements on Xbox 360, trophies are granted for completing specific in-game goals. Developers will be able to craft actual 3D models for their games' trophies, and players can choose to highlight the most impressive trophies out in full view; the room is open for other players to admire. PlayStation Home is currently in a closed beta test. A larger scale beta program will begin in April or May, with a full launch this fall. Nick Breckon contributed to this story.