Coo.

I'm terrified of the fact that these people send out threats of a legal nature in an attempt to cover up an overly elaborate chatroom.

Wait until the graphical masterpiece that is PS3 "popping down to the shops" arrives. Somebody has to get sued over that little doozy.

That virtual apartment is almost as large as my house. As for the "originally designed for the ps2" comment...if that was the case why isn't this thing ready to go?

But can it play games?

I'm as psyched as anyone should be about the prospect of paying real money for cosmetic virtual items and then paying real money for a larger virtual placre to put it in, all the while being assaulted by in game ads, but Sony does realize that the PS3 is for games, right?

Honestly, I'm really impressed by this move. Some friends and I had been fantasizing about almost this exact thing for our Miis; Sony announced Home, describing everything that we had wanted to include and then some.

I don't have a PS3 yet, but this is the kind of thing that would make me more likely to purchase one in the future.

That actually seems kinda cool...

As cool as Miis are ... Nintendo needs to get the anti-social networking stick out of the ass and give us a "I'm fucking over 18 so stop treating me like a child" checkbox.

Mind you I Hate Sony and Love Nintendo, so it's hard for me to say anything nice about them.

What's this? Interacting with strangers in virtual public settings and in apartments, and never, ever have to meet or talk to them in-person? Now that's a social life!

Using the analogue sticks to wave (mapping one stick to one hand and vice versa) like in Little Big Planet (I keep thinking little big adventure) is really cool. Is that what they mean by gesture controls or am I shaking the whole controller?

hye man, lets go play a few rounds of resistance online

ok, but im on the other side of town can you wait till i get there, it'll take me about 20mins

.........um, maby next round

ok.........

it's starting to seem like a halfway decent concept for people who dont dwell too much in sims or second life, so long as it is well executed and there are online games worth gathering online for.

achievements didnt sell 360s
miis didnt sell wiis

content(exclusive helps), originality, and listening to the gamers sells systems

"they'd like to explore having 3rd-party publishers use your Home avatar in games."

hmmm sounds familiar. Oh well, at least PS3 might use them more than better than in the Wii.

1 post allright!!!!!!

Interesting...But can you order a pizza in game?

This PS3 home feature is awesome. I am sold.

fap fap fap
i want

Interviewer "Will Home feature radio-active donkeys wielding waterpistols filled with Vimto?"

Phil "Why not!"

Interviewer 'If I suggest something that Home might feature will you say 'why not'?"

Phil "Why not?"

Interviewer " Why arn't I asking any questions regarding important issues? Microtransactions, copyright issues with displaying media with 15 other people etc.

Phil " Because we're paying YOU for this TV slot, and why not?"

That covers some of the speculative questions and scenarios people have been tossing out there. Now if they will only cover how much stuff is microtransaction and how much is available from the start, we'll be in business.

Awesome deal...I can't wait.

The first ps3 feature I'm actually itching to try.

What I really want are lobbies based on various games, like the Sky Pirate's Den from FF12 (yes, I mentioned this elsewhere). I can imagine getting bored with the current lobby pretty quickly. I guess as long as there's a variety eventually, it'll be okay.

Mildly interesting. Could be something I would spend time on, if I get a PS3 in the future (sorry, this do not justify 600 dollars).

Funny that many people are treating this as the savior to the PS3, even PA flip-flopped after seeing this.

seems like there is no reason why they cant do anything...that they've looked into everything...and have discussed pretty much every funtionality....ever!

I'm not usually this cynical but I found it funny that every time the interviewer asked a question about a certain type of service or function, Phil says, "Sure we can do that!"

Although, it does seem like they are really starting simple and letting the market/users/developers, give their input into what they want out of the service and go from there....and that's a breath of fresh air from Sony....and I'm talking the brisk mountain kind!

Rad. If I don't get into the beta I'm gonna be pissed.

Still more of this "eventually" and "over time" noncommittal language. I'm sure that Home will have most of the features talked about here and in the unveiling video, but it's very convenient the way Sony has couched their statements.

Also am I the only one that finds it creepy that this PS3 feature shares its name with the most disturbing and unsettling X-Files episode?

It'd probably be awkward to have your parents walk in while you're waving the sixaxis in the air energetically to send a wave to someone you don't even know.
Still, all good things for PS3.

If I want to play with friends, I invite them round and we play some Wii.

If I wanted to be a sad case talking to virtual friends and spending virtual money bought with real money on virtually useless polygonal meshes and texture maps, I'd play Second Life.

If I had no friends and a very disposable income, I'd buy a PS3. Home is just lipstick on a pig.

@AGiES:

What do you expect. Sony knows that they will not meet their promises (at least not initially), and just saying all this to bait us in. Many people will be heartbroken when this service finally launches, and many of the features are not either there, or parts of it cut

And I feel sorry for those that do fall for this. I smell one of the greatest microtransaction scam of this generation. There is no way all of this is free, when they are dealing with no only 200-300 dollar lost per system, but a "free" online system.

to me this reaks of second life or sims...
the beauty of chat rooms and instant messaging is its low frosting...
if I'm chatting with someone on live or on a pc do i need to see a virtual them?, will it make the conversation better? no

i just keep asking myself why would i need to virtually walk up to you and talk to you when i can just message you? or why would i want to watch a movie or tv show on a fake screen on my screen or play a game on a fake arcade cabinet...?

just seems unnecessary and lame to me.
they are adding a layer of interactivity that is mundane and redundant.

let me go into my living room so i can turn on my PS3 & tv...then i can enter my virtual living room and turn on my virtual tv and play my virtual dvd player... and invite some virtual friends over to virtually sit and pretend to watch a movie

i should be able to do this with less interaction...like turn on system play movie & stream to other systems...no silly second life bullshit needed

i'm no fan boy but dammit i think this is getting way too much applause.

Playstation 3, now with "Mall in a Box!" I'll spend that $600, now that it comes with a way for me to be bombarded with ads and idiot teenagers right in my own home.

I'd rather have some good games than the ability to make a fake apartment ... Xbox Live works because it's about the games. I'd spend an hour or two setting things up, then I'd never deal with it again.

So, you can invite people into your virtual, then what? I mean, isn't this the virtual equivalent of having the guys over, sitting around and going, "So, umm ... what do you wanna do?"

"Umm ... I dunno, you?"

"I dunno."

Get some damn gaming going on, this isn't Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

meh.

seriously, this is not going to sway me to buy a ps3. i've been sitting on the sidelines of this round of consoles, waiting to see what the better bang for the buck (i.e. who has the games i want to play...and not just one or two, 8 or 9 must haves).

and while this home, miis, whatever are cute. i don't play games for cute. i play games to rob someone of the coins and the steal their car while i blast aliens who've stolen my girlfriend. i don't buy a system to stock an online 'apartment'...i already have one of those in real life.

and the lobby will be nice. you can wave at me and I do yet another stupid dance while we wait for your two friends to show up so we can all go kill stuff. i mean, if i'm going have to wait around for you two friends to show up, i might as well have long blue pointy ears and obsessive jumping disorder (at least in that world we get to kill things...instead of argue over where to put your new couch).

i miss insert game play.

I'm just going to say what everyone is thinking. It would be so cool to stream TV shows or movies that you have downloaded on your harddrive to people in your room. Real life friends that maybe can't come over in real life for the day watch something with you virtually. Also stuff like funny videos from youtube or whatever. The one thing i'm worried about is that to stop the full movie viewing from happening is they could put a size or length limit on things. I really really hope not.

Man, Kotaku, and I ask this out of love -- what's the point of allowing only approved commenters if more than half of them are illiterate and only serve to make your website look like a jackass?

Also, I'd be very (VERY) surprised if the only way to play a game with someone via PlayStation Home would be to walk all the way up to that person. Very surprised. I'm PRETTY SURE there's a friends' list function.

Call it a hunch!

Also, as for the "the PS3 is for GAMES" comments. God. Hell. Duh. Don't assume that just because one division of a company is working on one thing doesn't mean that every other division has stopped to stand in place and stare.

My question:

"Why didn't they create a buzz before?"

They are working on this since PS2 (end of console cycle, maybe 2 years max). We were all talking about the PS3 as a lifeless console and they let us do it.

Why haven't they just say something about it. I don't know, like a pub were you see Home with the PS3 logo. Create somekind of hype. Instead, they bull**** us with the BlueRay argument.

This news is amazing but at the same time, it also looks like a unpolished product to help the PS3 popularity. Because we all know that it was going nowhere. I wish that the product is great however because it looks really great and full of potential.

Hells yes! I'm going to be on this day and night.

"Sony does realize that the PS3 is for games, right"

Replace Sony with Nintendo. And PS3 with Wii. And now the circle of whining is complete.

This sounds like wayyy too much. What happened to just having a system to play games and not go in each others "apartments" when you can do that in real life?

It kind of sounds like they have no actual goal for Home. He says "thats a great idea" and "we are stil working with publishers" and "we are looking at that." more times than i'd like... almost as if they either don't have any idea where they are going, or just havn't put the time in. They make it seem like Home is still very much a concept.

It does look neat, but I don't think PlayStation Home is the killer app people keep making it out to be.

Why is it that people seem to want to deny Sony of any credit so badly that it seems like their life is dependent on their failure? Seriously, it's one thing to prefer one console, or series of games, or even a control scheme. But some of you are taking it to such an extreme that I don't even know if it's satire or not anymore.

This GDC was a solid win for Sony in a sea of missteps. If you have some personal grudge against Sony or not is irrelevant. At least give them credit for the fact that they are actually trying to do something different, and save the judgments for the actual product.

Because right now, all I am seeing is judgments based on assumed features and imagined transgressions that have yet to be.

@venomus:

Err, the virtual PSP was put in precisely to prevent that situation from happening,

Man this is so over kill!! They have to be going after High Schoolers or something...cause back in high school I loved MMOs, like PSO, Warcraft, but now I just don't have the time, nor do I want to extend the effort to live in a virtual world, when the real world is tough enough. HAAHAHAAAaa. If you are actually walking around this whole time, and have to travel from neighbor hood to neighbor hood you better get a car or something to that effect. We use cars cause we have to, but in a game, it would be better off just warping, oh but thats not realistic so I guess forget that idea.

Oh, and another thing:

Anyone who says that no one is going to waste their time in a virtual world talking about games while wasting their time posting on a message board while talking about games is clearly missing the point.

Same song, different dance folks It's not like they are going to force you to use Home to use the friends list. It's just going to be another section on the XMB if you decide to use it.

You can access all Home functions through a menu screen. So no, you don't have to run across a plaza just to watch a trailer.

to be honest, i was hanging out since 2005 for a ps3, and was even saving up money for it.

but after seeing that it was 'entertainment machine.' that it costs $1000 (I'm in Australia) and that it wouldnt just 'insert and play,' and that there werent going to be any interesting games for at least a year out from release (the Australian release mind you)

I went and bought a ds lite.

best $200 I ever spent.

it's like i'm a kid again and plugged in my NES for the first time.
Eventually I might get a ps3... but at the moment they are definitely not providing $1000 of value.

you know that $1000 in Australia can buy you like ... a kangaroo farm!?

My buddy is a total Xbox fanboy, and he has gotten really persistant as of late. He admits that Home is probably going to be huge, and so his bitterness ensues so that he can forget about some of the inadequacies of the 360.

It looks neat.

It is gonna be full of ads.

They are gonna charge for all kinds of perks (pimp your "home").

Home is gonna be filled with the kind of people you would never hang out with in real life.

As long as it has lots of shortcuts, it won't be too annoying to use but the people will still make it annoying.

Cynicism aside, there is potential here for a lot of people to waste a lot of time.

Remember (as someone said above me) they lost money selling you the console, they are paying for the server you are using and you didn't pay up front for home. You will be hosed for addons and bombarded with ads all the while listening to screaming twelve year olds with ADHD.

I think I'll just put myself on the record here and we'll see later if I made a jackass out of myself or not.

This buildup of Home is very similar to the buildup for the PS3. The main difference is instead of saying there will be features in the final product that weren't there, they're saying they're looking into/exploring/seeing if they can have features in the final product.

Not only am I betting on most of the investigatory features never making it, I'm also betting that at least one of the solid features mentioned will not be implemented. At the very least, one of them will be toned down or just not work as expected.

Fool me once (PS2's emotion engine bullshit), shame on me. Fool me twice (PS3 features being cut and scaled down), shame on you. Fool me three times (Home possibly coming up short) and I consider myself mentally retarded for allowing you to do that to me.

@PapaBear:

Answer me something; would you be so defensive, if this was Nintendo announcing it? Because your answer shouldn't change,unless you are biased towards Sony.

@moonfirelol:

PA didn't flip flop over Home, they went nuts over LittleBigPlanet, like any self-respecting gamer ought to.

I will love to see how many of of you Sony detractors will be in the PS3 HOME Kotaku space, that is going to happen.

HOME isn't here to 'save' the Playstation 3... its just one of the benefits that come with the Playstation brand. No one feature, or one game is going to justify the 600 dollar price tag, it's the entire package that justifies the ps3 cost... free internet, HOME, blu ray, sleek design, internet browser, games, etc...