Today we attended Sony's PlayStation Home session where Senior Producer of Home Tools and Support James Cox discussed how developers can use Home to create public and private spaces for gamers to explore. Also covered in the session was discussion on the development of Home Tools themselves, with v.8 out now, and v1.0 to soon be released. With each update, Sony hopes to make development easier and more flexible for 3rd party and 2nd party Home developers.
To begin, the first key feature shown was how PlayStation Home tools will allow developers to create custom clothing, custom animations, furniture, and avatar heads for Home users. An example could be having an unlockable Sweet Tooth head from Twisted Metal for your Home character. Now while this is a cool feature, gamers must know that these heads are static and are not customizable.
The custom animations also sounded interesting as developers can give Home characters custom animations for using special items, playing mini-games, or wearing specific outfits. An example of this could be could be a Home character performing a signature animation well-known from another title.
The next features that were shown were using scene tools for creating private and public spaces and how to create a menu system for Home users to jump from Home into multiplayer games.
The video below shows how users will use the in-game PSP to launch into multiplayer games.
*Update*
Developers will be allowed to create Home Interactive Items. The first item shown was something called a "Bubble Machine" which users can pull out using their in-game PSP menu and drop on the ground. Other items talked about included a virtual camera, tv remotes, and footballs. Developers can produce items to both sell or giveaway. Also items in the game can be interactive (such as the football which uses Home physics) and be picked up and dropped. Items can have animations, collision, and audio. (Developer shows images, inlcuding a scene with 20-30 Home users dancing with Bubble machines all around)

HOpe we see new stuff, ive seen someone add items to their apartment. Lets see if they show us how you get an apartment in the first place. I'm pretty sure you will have to pay real money for a better place.
The coolest thing for home ever. Would be you go into a huge shopping mall sytle area which is the playstation store. U pick up games e.g warhawk and put it in your bag. Then u buy it at the counter. AWESOME NESS!
Judging by tha amount of rumours about public beta before, I don't believe it before it's official.
well thats all folks no mother flucking home open beta for us poor people only more goodies for the more "loyal" people who sit on the playstation forums all day
imaginte a huge stand for Adiddas or Nike this could go to live concerts and that ! XBL is so done..
I want this so bad.............
At first I really want this to come out but now I just want to slap sony. I mean all we got is a lot of soon to release promises w/o anything. But wait MS does give there people dates. Sony if you take any longer I know the Wii will price drop and screw you real good. So give us the damn beta already forget a full blown release.
nice pics
Woah psu,how did u take these shots,while breakdancing?(Seriously,i you guys could up the quality and down the blurriness in Photoshop or something,that would be great)
cool things but i would much like to know when is going to be released?
Uhh nice video...... hahahaha are you serious? I could just go onto youtube, Start to shake my camera while videotaping, talk like a brit about the proper way to clean your pool filter and it would be exactly the same! I am sorry but I just thought that the vid was pretty funny.
Nice delivery PSU great job on the images and article with the *Updates. This leaves nothing but pure-antiscipation for us all :).
Yo! look @ dem pics!
Standard apparetments will be free, ant they have a LOT of room. but the stuff that goes into it, that's something you might have to payfor. Some items will comes with games and some will likely be offered in the store for purchase either alone or in sets.
yea enacku it would be great i thought of a shopping mall setup like that once were you walk in and its has stores like ea sports insomniac ect. stores and a psn store were you can buy psn games or download demos and walk to a counter and buy it from a cashier it would by sweet....hey why dont we all go to the playstation blog and send e-mails to sony telling them bout our idea
home is going to be amazing, i cant wait, goodbye gaybox
That is good. PS3 Home is going to be awesome. Its too bad they didn't gave us a release date but considering its version its pretty close to going 1.0 so that means we are very close to release.
Sounds good, but when is this thing coming out?
I'm one of the beta testers and when it came out Sony said there was going to be two closed beta tests, an open beta test, and then the full release. We are in the second beta test now and edging closer to the open test. Soon the full release will be here and we will all be meeting, greeting, and annihilating people all over home.
@Betatesterlord
I smell a bu**shi*er.
Thanks for the update.
I'm getting more and more hyped about this
Am I the only one here who thinks this is quite sad? Yeah it's clever and looks good but why live a virtual life when you have a real one?
jicaly you dont have to do the whole virtual thing thats what the virtual psp is for it streamlines everything into a menu for people who dont want the extra stuff i mean yeah youll still have an avatar and stuff but you dont have to put effort into it and its not replacing the psn so dont worry about it
I know you dont but why dont people go out and socialize. At the end of the day what will you have to show for yourself in life after sitting inside playing Home for hours a day.... NOTHING! I enjoy a good online game session as much as the other person but an online life? I may be missing the point but I think its a bit weird. Just give us an in-game messgae/chat/friends list and call it a day.
I wonder if Home will be connected between the regions or separate. You know, like EU people can visit JAP people's apartments and so on. I want to go to visit some hot asian's apartment, lololol! (Yes, I know it's a virtual world but hey, it'd still be fun) All kidding aside, it would be cool to visit friend's places across the world in Home.
Can't wait for home. I would have no problem with droping money for add ons for my apartment or even a bigger apartment. Crashbox3fixme's XBL is done for.
I dont want no more dang news on this HOME, release the dang game allready! I mean really release it!
where is k2 where is it!!!!
i want to see it sooo bad my god is it ever commin out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i think it'd cool if you could pick something up from the ps store and try and walk out without paying for it and then get the securety over to get you to either pay for it or put it back.
i have to agree with jicaley. this is well over hyped. why do people think it would be great if the playstation store was set out like a real store? just go to a real store!! ffs sony should concentrate on bringing games out instead of useless ego massagers like this pish! then again i live in england and we only just got the wheel, we've been given a release date of 2010 for gravity. if we're really lucky we might get electricity by the time the olympics are here!!
When is this coming out, PLEASE ANYONE OUT THERE????? I need a date and soon cant hold out much longer!!!!
this home thing is preety weird i agree wit jicaley, but hitin on girls on this would be my thing LoL
You know whats funny? Almost every game on the xbl is uber laggy, even the old school arcade games. I can play tekken online virtually lagless(and free).Crapbox was next gen for about 9 weeks.Kingdom hearts 1 os unlike any game created for the 3fixme.Period.