This past week at the Game Developer's Conference 2007, Phil Harrison of Sony presented a Keynote speech. GDC isn't notorious for big announcements, but Sony presented their first serious foray into the online space this generation, Playstation Home.

Home is essentially a digital hub that is visually represented in a 3d space. Your first task is to create an avatar, they have a massive selection of different clothes and accessories to adorn your digital self with. You get a virtual apartment, complete with trophy room, and there are an assortment of public spaces. So Sony have combined Microsoft's achivements with Nintendo's Miis, and wrapped it up into slick Playstation cool.

Along with the above, you can play arcade games, mini-sports games, and instantly jump into multiplayer games with friends. You can chat using a variety of methods, including short text messages from a set list, proper chat with a keyboard, or voice chat with a headset.

Given that Home will be a free download it's bound to get a lot of interest at first, but whether it can really compete with Xbox Live which is well established (6 million users), and very in depth, remains to be seen.


Playstation Home Hub


A user's Trophy Room