Welcome Home: Hanging Out PlayStation Style

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Is it me, or is gaming relying more and more on social media networks? Time was, gaming was this dirty, solitary habit you did in your mom’s basement or in a darkened corner of your dad’s study. You didn’t talk about it, you didn’t brag about it, and (even if you wanted to), you couldn’t show off your gaming accomplishments.

Nowadays, if you don’t have an Achievement score of at least 14000, you’re probably going to catch heat about it – in real life. Gamertags, friend codes and even guilds are increasingly important parts of your gaming experience, even if you’re not into competitive multiplayer games.

So, logically, Sony wants to step that up and incorporate even more stuff into your social gaming experience. But instead of just adding Trophies and an avatar system (in the mode of “me too!” one-upmanship we usually see between Xbox and PlayStation), they’ve made an entire virtual world that’s supposed to bring your gaming, your music, your movies and even your sense of style all together in one place. This is definitely a step up from the Mii Plaza.

So how well does it work? It’s too soon to weigh in on technical flaws, but the three years of development definitely shows in how smooth the test environment runs, how detailed the avatar design system is and in the sheer amount of stuff there is to do in Home.

http://kotaku.com/5072907/welcome-ho...ystation-style