Sony Decorates Home for PS3
Will all games have Trophies? Can you give your friends media? Find out.
Whether you choose to think of Home, Sony's new virtual community for the PS3, as a Second Life clone or a completely new way to look at interactions in and around games, there's no denying that the service has people talking.
Home will have a closed beta including around 15,000 people that kicks off in April before going open in August with 50,000 users, according to a Sony fact sheet.
The full service is expected to go live in October and will be available as a free download to all. Home will exist right in the PS3 main menu.
The service will initially only be available through the PS3 but Sony is working to give people access through their PSPs and even their mobile phones.
Many people are already thinking of Home as a place to use content already on their PCs, but according to Sony that capability is not yet built into the service. Home users will also not be able to give media to one another.
Another aspect of Home that has been getting attention is the idea of Trophies - 3D rewards earned in games, much like Microsoft's Achievements. The systems will, however, be very different.
Sony is not making Trophies a universal requirement for all PS3 games, and it is encouraging developers to concentrate on a small number of rewards per game rather than the smaller, more frequent ones found in Xbox 360 games.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
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