It has been over a year and a half since Sony unveiled PlayStation Home at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. However, since that time they have delayed the schedule twice and Home is still in beta testing only..
Meanwhile at E3 2008, Microsoft today unveiled their new features for the upcoming Fall update on the Xbox 360. The big changes are a completely new dashboard and Netflix streaming capabilities. The new dashboard will include fancy new Mii-like 3D Avatars, a new emphasis on community with IM, video chat, and photo sharing, along with a brand new 3D slide interface for the main dashboard screen.
Avatars will be integrated into your GamerCard, but you can also create a "Live party" and invite your friends, with as many as eight of your three dimensional homies hanging out at once. It sounds like Microsoft is taking cues from the Wii, Sony's Home and Facebook all in one fell swoop, not bad at all. The difference of course though, is that Microsoft will actually deliver the goods later this year while Sony continues to postpone the Home release with no release date in site.
Having worked at Sony as a Creative Designer two years ago, it doesn’t surprise me that they have still yet to release Home. While there, I was working on their Station Launcher application which was supposed to be released in late 2006. However, the Launcher app is still only in Beta to this day. The problem for Sony is that they simply aren’t a very good software company and in today’s world of software driven products, they are getting their clocks cleaned by Microsoft. With Microsoft’s price cut on the Xbox 360 and their continuing progress on the software front, Sony can only dream of what “could have been” at this point.
* Update: Play from hard drive - I completely forgot to mention that you will be able to copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive. Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well. Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game. This is great news!
