What PlayStation Home Can Offer

Home. Since its beta launch it has been a hot topic of whether or not it is of any use…to anyone. But since its inception, Playstation Home has proved to be a most unique and viable commodity combining elements found in other gaming-type worlds.

Playstation Home has often been referred to somewhat like Second Life, a 3D social networking program where you move around in various spaces with an avatar you’ve created. By talking to people, a slew of emotes and dances at your fingertips, you can certainly drop your character into a crowd and dance the jig. Add in the fact that you can voice chat and type messages it is nothing short of being a 3D chatroom.

How is Playstation Home useful? For starters time and time again Sony has proven that Home generates a very profitable income. Users of Home soon find that there is a whole throng of clothes, furniture, items that really can set you apart from the other players. At relatively cheap prices, it’s very easy to get drawn in and want to identify yourself as a separate entity from the rest of the world you inhabit. You can also purchase different apartment spaces, most of which look spectacular in their design.

Home also in turn gives free advertising for developers who wish to have their space available to the populace. This gives players the advantage of wandering around a space, seeing posters for the latest games, upcoming game footage on walls and buying unique items only available from those areas. This is where Playstation Home sets itself apart from any other platform. It’s an evolving network of advertising and human interaction which, when combined, lead to some pretty fun times to be had.

Of course, there is always the down side to anything. Home is a program you choose to download and use. While this is good, and free, it also stops many who either don’t understand what Home is about or read the negative feedback about Home, from possibly enjoying themselves in the 3D virtual space. Its biggest problem apart from the fact that it does take a while to load, is that none of it is integrated into the actual XMB of the PS3.

Playstation Home works by initialising with the server to re-identify what you’ve bought. This takes a while and depending on your internet service provider coupled with your connection (wireless or wired), could take a few minutes.

What Sony need to do, is have the apartment space already on your hard drive without needing the internet to activate it or its contents. Why? Very simple. The PS3 avatars are cool, but not as cool as it would be to have your very own customised avatar created from Home to use. So imagine if you will the following process.

The PS3 boots up, and instead of the XMB with your background, you have your apartment space. This space doesn’t require the internet to activate it, so it loads automatically within seconds. By using your D-pad on your controller, pressing left or right navigates around the space in a speedy fashion to access each menu drop down that is normally available on your XMB. As a note, you would have the option to either have your XMB or your Home Space.

Of course, the coolest part is being able to wander around your space using the analog sticks. You could walk up to each menu item as well, plus also having your Navigator, the menu you access to show all the spaces you can visit and options available to you, as part of your avatar as well. You could invite your friends into your space, game launch from it as well as communicate via text or voice.

Either way, by taking a very organic program such as PS Home and meshing it with the already streamlined XMB, you would have a very original idea born of two. Home, whether you love it or hate it, has the potential, has shown the potential even with its first MMO launching just a few months back, to expand continuously. Providing Sony with a regular income, it gives them the chance to really take it further than ever before.

I know I would love to wander around in my Home space when my PS3 has booted up, checking out who’s online, chatting to my buddies while figuring out what game to play. Imagine, a big LCD TV on the far wall with a PS3 below it, you walk up, and that launches the game found in your actual PS3, complete with the image on the TV that you normally have when you highlight the disc on your XMB.

Get to work Sony.

Written by Infinite Retro, for more of this author check out www.youtube.com/infiniteretro