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Tonight I decided to check into Free Realms, and after doing the normal login via Firefox I waited for the game to load up. I closed up some old tabs to tidy up but when I heard no crunching of the hard drive I clicked back over to the site to see what was up. Read more »

Given the harsh drubbing that PlayStation Home has received at the hands of the gaming press you'd think that Home would be a ghost town devoid of players, but you'd be wrong. On the admittedly infrequent times I log in to check out what's going on there I always find people running around the public spaces. If I stick around long enough admiring a video screen or looking over an ad someone will invariably type out a text message greeting to me there.

Having the barrier of entry to the virtual environment be zero dollars and zero cents (aside from your PlayStation 3 and internet connection fees, that is) is a key part of that story along with the associated story that it's already sold $1 million of goods. That's right, those little bits of clothing, items, and even apartment locations you can purchase have actually been selling. If you ask me, selling $1 million worth is mighty impressive.

I'm waiting for them to flesh out the completely empty item categories of furniture myself, but I haven't bought any clothing or seen any I'd like to purchase just yet.

Look for another post coming soon detailing just what I think could make Home a fantastic place to spend more time.

Seen on PS3Fanboy.

The 1.04 patch for PlayStation Home deployed earlier today and for the first time since it was released last week I was able to log in. Granted I'd only tried a few times in the evening, and today I tried mid-morning on a rare day off, but it was nice to log in. Read more »

Whenever PlayStation Home comes up during the Aeropause Podcasts Joe voices an opinion held by several people, or least they used to before Microsoft said they were making 3D avatars too, which is: Who asked for this, and what's the point? It's a valid question, really, especially for hardcore gamers who just want their matchmaking to be fast, efficient, and feature-rich. Read more »

I'm unhappy with news that Sony has decided not to put video sharing into Home, and by video sharing I mean having someone come to your apartment and then playing videos on a TV there streaming from your console hard drive. This is one of the only reasons I'd really ever want someone to come visit my apartment in the online service. Read more »