Here’s some low-res footage of Home and LittleBigPlanet for you to take a look over while we get some high quality films in place (coming very shortly).

Home:

LittleBigPlanet:

LITTLEBIGPLANET™: EXPLORE, CREATE, SHARE.

Be Part of a Global PlayStation®3 Community Creating a Brand New Gaming World; Genre-Defying, Astoundingly Imaginative –It’s More Than Just Gaming

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 7, 2007 — Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios today revealed a glimpse of the LittleBigPlanet™ – the first creative gaming experience for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) – at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California.

Developed by Media Molecule, LittleBigPlanet is a new PS3 community-based game with a hugely innovative concept behind it. Players meet on a blue and green planet scattered with individual plots – and use their character’s amazing abilities to play, create and share what they build with other gamers throughout the world via PLAYSTATION®Network.

The LittleBigPlanet experience starts with players learning about their character’s powers to interact physically with the environment. There are obstacles to explore, bits and pieces to collect and puzzles to solve – requiring a combination of brains and collaborative teamwork. As players begin to explore, their creative skills will grow and they will be ready to start creating and modifying their surroundings – the first step to sharing them with the whole community.
Read more…

Virtual PSP:
“Your Virtual PSP gives you access to all the navigation, features and options of Home.”

Read more…

And even more pic’s:

Home Sports:
“Both game and non-game brands can strengthen their user communities in Home by custom building their own spaces.”

Read more…

Here’s some pics:

Home Games Space:
“The Games Space is where you can meet and relax with your friends with free casual games such as bowling, pool and retro arcade games.”

Read more…

As promised, we’ve got lots of information to share with you following all of the recent announcements at GDC.

Here’s the press release (verbatim) of the biggest announcement of the conference, Sony’s next-generation 3D online-user community ‘Home’. Screens and footage to follow shortly!

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT INC. ANNOUNCES GROUND-BREAKING, NEXT-GENERATION 3D ONLINE-USER COMMUNITY FOR PLAYSTATION®3 – “Home”

Free Download to Allow Broad User Interaction in Highly Detailed Community Environment; Opens Door to User-Created Content, Collaboration and Commerce

TOKYO and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 7, 2007 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced the unveiling of a first-of-its-kind 3D online user community service for the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system. The service, known as “Home,” will enable users to create their own avatar and explore a real-time virtual community, as if they are playing a detailed 3D game for PS3. The service will become available globally beginning in fall 2007.

Home will be demonstrated at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California on March 7 as a key element of SCEI Worldwide Studios’ President Phil Harrison’s keynote presentation titled “Game 3.0: Developing and Creating for the 3rd Age of Videogames.”

Home is a real-time online 3D, networked community available on the PLAYSTATION®Network. It allows PS3 users to interact, communicate, join online games, shop, share private content and even build and show off their own personal spaces to others in real time. Home will be available as a free download from the PLAYSTATION®Store and will launch directly from XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) on PS3.
Read more…

We put some questions to Sony about Home, one of the main revelations of Phil Harrison’s keynote speech at GDC. Here’s the substantial set of answers we got back…

First up, here’s some key points about Home that they provided us with:

• Is the first of its kind on a computer entertainment console
• A unique blend of community, user-generated content, collaboration and commerce that is the future of computer entertainment.
• Will broaden the online community market in the same way that the PlayStation brand has broadened the gaming market
• Will take the mystery and the geekiness out of online interaction, and make it as easy as text messaging or picking up the phone
• Is inclusive and welcoming, not exclusive and daunting like current offerings
• Is the gateway and start point for a whole raft of future PlayStation Network services

Can you define Home for us?
“Home is a real-time online 3D, networked community available on PS3 and the Network. It allows PS3 users to interact, communicate, join online games, shop, share private content and even build and show off their own personal spaces to others in real time. Home will be available as a free download from the PlayStation Store and will launch directly from the XMB (XrossMediaBar) on PS3.”
Read more…

Phil Harrison wowed the crowds at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco with a barnstorming keynote, in which he revealed his vision for a new era of gaming fuelled by the PlayStation 3 – which he calls game 3.0 – and unveiled two key PS3-related items. The first is called Home, and essentially it is a Second Life-style, 3D, avatar-based world which exists on the PlayStation Network and will let all PlayStation users chat, socialise, display their achievements and set up multiplayer games. Equally well received was an innovative, incredible-looking game called LittleBigPlanet, which is designed to let users create their own levels – fitting in with the user-generated content aspect of Game 3.0.

Harrison explained that Game 3.0 had been prompted by last year’s Time Magazine cover, which declared that the public was the Man of the year, with the line: “Yes, you, the people, control the Information Age.” Explaining that Game 1.0 was the age of games existing only on cartridges or disks and game 2.0 involved connected gaming but still constrained by the amount of content on a disk, Game 3.0 is about: “Community devices empowered by their audiences. It’s about emergent entertainment, powered by an audience at the centre of the
entertainment experience.”

Demonstrating Home, he started off in the Central Lounge, a space which players can move their avatars around (Home has powerful facial design tools, and Harrison said that there will be free clothes, premium clothing that users can buy and clothing that will be unlocked when you buy games), chat using text or voice and play “low-intensity” games including pool, bowling and even virtual arcade machines, for which users will be able to download specific games. Home has a physics engine, so objects inside it behave more or less like they do in the real world – as Harrison demonstrated by throwing a TV running the casino Royale trailer down stairs.

PS3 users will also each get their own private apartment in Home, which you can decorate and fill with furniture (again, some will be free, some will be paid-for) and even media from your PS3’s hard disk. Private apartments will be the perfect launch pad for multiplayer games: Harrison said they could: “Become your clan’s club-house.”
Read more…

With only a few more hours to go until Phil Harrison steps up to give his keynote speech at GDC, here’s a short film with some first reactions of what’s to come:

Interesting piece on Wired.com about downloadable content across the three major consoles and their different strategic approaches/business models. Check it for yourself http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72831-0.html?tw=rss.index