Sony announces massive changes to PlayStation Home

The Gadget Show  Wednesday 24 August 2011

Sony has announced a complete redesign of PlayStation Home, adding new districts, a central hub and effectively turning the virtual world into a game in its own right.

PlayStation Home, Sony’s virtual world for PS3 gamers, has been quietly growing since its rather disappointing launch. Minigames have been added, new shopping venues and chat areas have sprung up and thousands of gamers have set up virtual home for their creepily good-looking avatars. In the next few months, Sony is rolling out some big changes to Home that add many new features and turn the virtual world into something much more game-like.

The biggest change is the creation of a ‘Hub’ area with different ‘Districts’ attached to it. The Hub will be a central start-point and meeting area with lots of playable games and amusements as well as many of the current features of Home. From the Hub you will be able to travel to four ‘Districts’, each themed around a different type of game.

The Action district will be a gritty, first-person shooter-inspired area with links to action, combat and horror-type games. Sportswalk is for sports fans with both playable games and real-time feeds of live sporting events and results. The Adventure District caters for those who like wandering around with swords and backpacks full of gold coins while Pier Park is aimed at casual gamers and puzzle fans.

Over-arching all of this is a new Activity Board that keeps you up to date with what is going on around you. The board is also part of a ‘questing system’ that effectively turns Home into a game in its own right. You can be assigned tasks, given scavenger-hunt type quests or take part in ongoing narrative games. It all sounds much more immersive than Home 1.0 and it will be fascinating to see how it works in practice.