SONY:PS3Home announcement at GDC

Rumour reports on the web claim to spill the beans on part of Sony’s GDC announcements – five days before the format-holders’ keynote in San Francisco – saying that the PS3’s online offer will be updated into a MySpace/Second Life style hybrid called ‘PlayStation Home’.
A tipster talking to gamer blog Kotaku describes the updated service as follows: “you get to make an avatar for your console (like a [Nintendo Wii] Mii) and this avatar has a room. As you play games and accomplish certain tasks, you will receive items with which to adorn the room that are specific to the game (achievements).”



Xbox Live-style achievements will become key requirements for every PS3 game produced and that users will be able to visit the homes hosted on their friends' machines.

Kotaku temporaily ran into trouble with Sony for posting the news, and development sources Develop has contacted today have declined to comment on this topic - one contact cited watertight non-disclosure agreements. Arguably such ‘neither deny or confirm’ statements only add fuel to a fire that proves there is some truth to the reports.

And certainly, Sony has recently hinted at the addition of increased online functionality that incorporates virtual worlds and avatars.

Talking to Newsweek’s games blog Level Up at February’s DICE event, Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison discussed Nintendo’s Mii avatars, saying: “If you are going to have an avatar which is your representative in a virtual world, it has to stand for more of your personality than some 2-D cartoons. So while I think that millions of people would be happy with cartoony looks, the planet at large probably isn't.

“And it's an experiment that will be played out very soon, actually.”

Michael French, devmag.com