PlayStation3 goes Home

New virtualworld opens to all PS3 owners

Eat your heart out, New Xbox Experience.Tomorrow, all Playstation 3 owners will get a chance to experience Sony's ownanswer to online socializing and game playing: a virtual world called Home.

There's no charge for the new feature, whichwill come in the form of a multi-gigabyte download that'll update the firmwareof PS3s around the world. Once applied, the first step for new Home residentsis to design an avatar, a process that's already necessary on the Xbox 360 andWii, but one that will be new to many PS3-only gamers. Sony's avatar system,though, allows for considerably more realism and detail than either of itscompetitors.

Once you're in Home's world, you can chat withfriends, set up multiplayer gaming sessions, listen to streaming music, watchmovies, and play minigames. It'll be a familiar layout to anyone who's playedwith other virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, Runescape, or even SecondLife, the anything-goes social world that Home most resembles. Sony has alreadylined up an impressive range of partners -- including Red Bull, Diesel, andParamount Pictures -- who'll be offering sponsored content inside Home.

On the official PlayStation blog,Home director Jack Buser gives some useful advice from getting the most out ofyour new online life.

"We have a tutorial built in that willget you started with the controls, as well as help menus for you to referencein the Menu Pad. If you don't have a USB keyboard or Bluetooth headset pairedwith your PlayStation 3, now is the time to do so -- either option will allowyou to easily talk and meet everyone," he said in a post today.

Officially, Sony's calling the much-delayedlaunch an "open beta," which means they're pretty sure it works, butif you break it, don't bother suing.