Before the original launch of the PS3, there were rumours circulating around about a special feature of the PS3 that hadn’t been announced yet. The PS3 launch came and went without a mention of this “special” feature. Well I think that it has finally surfaced! This is all rumour at this point, but to me it makes a bit of sense. I’m going to lump this rumour into the “true” category.

So what is this feature? PlayStation Home.

It’s a virtual home that you can invite your friends on your friends list to. They can come to your home, see achievements (or will they be called “entitlements”, or something else?), and do some other cool things. Like what things? Well, they can listen to music that you have stored on your PS3! They can watch videos stored on your PS3 too. You’ll be able to make your media public or private, so that only public stuff can be viewable by others. You’ll be able to play minigames with your friends too. You’ll also be able to walk out of your virtual home and visit the Virtual Theater and Virtual Arcade.

You’ll also have an avatar, and some things suggested by Phil Harrison recently imply that this avatar won’t be as cartoony as the Wii’s.

It’s obvious that Sony has been working on PlayStation Home for some time. Something of this magnitude takes a lot of work, and I hope that people don’t say that Sony is copying Nintendo, because that’s obviously not the case. I’ve heard rumours of this feature for a while now – months before the launch of the PS3. But it’s also true that all the above features are rumours, and not facts. Who knows what may or may not be in the final version of PlayStation Home?

Either way, I’m excited. This is cool stuff. What do you all think?

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