Playstation Home

I recently received an invitation to participate in Sony's Playstation Home Beta. Following a short download and install, I was introduced to my online self. After a somewhat deep character customization, I built myself and chose from a rather small selection of clothing and accessories(heck, it's the beta). After saving my data I'm thrust into the world of PSN Home. Here, I've got my own little villa with a view overlooking a pier. A quick tutorial tells me how to interact with my environment, including rearranging my furniture and sitting in it. Enough with that though, as I jump into the next area of Home, Central Plaza. Being a hub for all that Home has to offer, I walk around and see the entrance to the Mall, the Bowling Alley, and the movie Theatre.First, I checked out the Movie Theatre. I walked in and found a seat, and after downloading (which wasn't as bad considering I had a dude in front of all of us just dancing for no apparent reason but somewhat amusing). After the download, a trailer for the new Socom game came on and after watching a lot of us got up and exited the theatre, except for the guy dancing. He stayed.Next, I checked out the Mall.

The Mall was pretty big, multiple stories high and featuring many different stores. None of them had anything to sell yet, but one can imagine that when the full version comes you'll maybe be able to purchase DLC, themes, more clothing, and more here. What was functional was the chess tables, where you can sit and wait for a friend or random person to sit across from you and join you in a game. An interesting distraction.

After the Mall I went into the Bowling Alley, where most of the residents of Home seemed to be hanging out. Here, you can join in games of Bowling (duh) with multiple players. You can also check out the arcade and play some free games. Don't forget to pay some pool while you're there, too.

All in all, there wasn't a whole lot to do yet in Home. Actually, that's just my opinion, because most of these things just seem geared towards social interactions, not really video games. I'm really more interested in playing some Resistance 2, not tossing some fictional bowling balls around with random people who look a lot like me. I do like the little things about Home though, the details. Everywhere you go there are advertisements for the latest games. There are even big screens everywhere constantly streaming trailers. There's even a sort of club you can hang around at and just dance to music with people. It just seems though that you're doing a lot more work to get around to doing what you can do almost instantly on XBL. Loading this program up and running around, gathering your friends to hang out. On XBL, this can be achieved with a few button presses. I'm not sure if Home is the XBL killer that so many fanboys pine about, but it's shaping up to be a neat distraction nonetheless and holds a lot of potential for more useful implementations.