After a number of short delays, Phil Harrison finally took the stage at GGC at 18:48PM, to make his long awaited keynote speech, which he titled "Game 3.0". User driven content was clearly the focus of the speech.

As was hotly rumoured over the week, and confirmed by Harrison himself last night, PlayStation Home would be at the heart of the speech. PlayStation Home is a real-time community networked together between users, where users can interact with each other under various different settings, at no cost.

PlayStation Home will be made available as a free download on the PlayStation store. As the name suggests, the service will allow you set up your own virtual living space on your PS3, with a personalised avatar to populate it with. This personal space can be customised with plenty of features, such as pictures, furniture, and wallpaper.

Harrison offered a few examples of how user driven content would play a part in this. Specific content stored on your hardrive can be used in your virtual apartment - MP3s can used on your 'home' steroe, video files can be viewed on your virtual TV, and stored picture files can be hung on your wall.

On top of this will be the "Hall of Fame", which is essentially a room displaying trophies (which can take whatever visual form the developr choses; the preview showed Loco Roco and Killzone characters) of numerous achievement from games the person has played. The room can be also customised to display trophies of your choosing.

In an rather original twist, you'll actually be able to see the trophies of games you don't even own yet, in the form of a giant virtual room in the back that spans as far as the eye can see. displaying every single trophy from every game on the console.

Most importantly is the fact that other PS3 players around the globe will be able to visit and interact with your virtual home. They can visit your house, look at your trophy, and talk with you using a keyboard interface or headset.

And then it gets interesting, as Phil Harrison revealed that users can actually leave their housees, into a world map filled with virtual spaces occupied by developers, business, and other companies, a system that Harrison expects to see even large growth from in the future.

"We expect it will be not just about Sony content, not just about game content, but a much wider network," Harrison explained. "Over time we expect it to expand to non-game brands as well, so you could imagine going to visit a space that might be provided by a famous beverage company or a cool clothing company or a record company, or even a retailer, or a magazine or a website."

Playstation Home is currently in the closed beta phase, and public beta is due to launch in April. The service is set for a global launch in the autumn.

Tags : 2007 : game developers conference : gdc : phil harrison : PlayStation 3 : playstation home

Comments

By: Dragonsoul On: 11:04 Mar 8th, 2007 Offline	I have to say that is one of the wackies and coolest ideas I've heard. :lol: I can imagine it can get quite addictive in a Sim City but reality-based kind of way. Interaction between people and their "homes" could grow quite wide, almost in WWW concept. I hope it dosen't flop because this could be really neat. :P

By: Pedro The Hutt On: 05:26 Mar 8th, 2007 Offline	I dunno, on one hand it strikes me as a PSO/PSU lobby without the adventure areas. On the other hand is strikes me as one of many 3D chatting programs out there, many of which are free. So... not exactly something that will make me want to buy a PS3. If you have a PS3 and PS3 owning friends, sure, it could be fun. And you might make some new friends... but people already have forums and the aforementioned programs for that.