Following Jack Tretton’s skit with Chewbacca in introducing
the new PSP hardware revision, Phil Harrison of Sony Worldwide took the
stage to talk about the PlayStation Network and PlayStation Home.
As part of his demonstration for PlayStation Home, Harrison
took a Sony Ericsson mobile from his jacket pocket to show the phone running
the Xross Media Bar (XMB) – the interface used to navigate functionality on the
PSP and PS3.
Harrison used the phone to take a photograph of the crowd to
his right, and minutes later during a walkthrough of his virtual apartment, the
photo appeared on the wall of a virtual room. This was used as an example of
how PlayStation Home will automate certain aspects of social networking as part
of the experience. Harrison also pointed out that users of PlayStation Home
will have full access to all of the PS3 console’s functions and capabilities while
in the virtual world application.
Furthering PlayStation Home’s aim to inject the PS3 with
social networking aspects is the reveal of an automatically generated website,
resembling MySpace – specific to each user – that mirrors the personal content
of each personal space. The PlayStation Home user website will be viewable via
any regular web browser, said Harrison.
PlayStation Home was first unveiled at
the Games Developer Conference during March. The service is currently operating
in a closed beta and is slated for launch this October.