Home

OK, reality check: PlayStation Home isn’t exactly a darling among core gamers. Or is it? According to Home’s director Jack Buser, more than 22 million users have logged in to the social gaming platform, and many of them rank among the most powerful of power users, if only judging from the disproportionately high number or Platinum Trophies they’ve got. So perhaps it’s more of a perception problem.

Earlier today, we unveiled the new core experience in PlayStation Home. After seeing the new Home in action, we chatted with Buser about the challenges faced by Home, and how Home might very well be the future of gaming. Crazy talk? Maybe. But read on and decide for yourself…

Forget iteration. PlayStation Home is about to undergo a full-on renovation. This fall, the PS3 social gaming platform will be relaunched with a brand-new central hub and accompanying neighborhoods. The goal: to put games at the center of everything. While that sounds like a perfectly reasonable aspiration, it was one that the team at Sony (admittedly) overlooked when initially building this platform.

Here’s a first look at the new Home…

Most of us play games to escape reality. For a few moments, the trials of the material world trickle away and your only concern is how many goddamn gold coins you can collect in an hour. Then, out of nowhere, a friggin' Xbox 360 console shows up in the actual game and all your suspended disbelief goes right out the window. It happens more often than you'd think. So often, in fact, we had little trouble amassing a large collection of these sneaky cameos. Here are the best examples, from zombie-blasting Dreamcasts to a DS floating in space.

If, for some reason, you’ve never heard of Home, it’s a virtual community that any PS3 owner with an internet connection can join for free. You are represented as an avatar that you can customize, from facial features to clothing, and you have your own special apartment that you can lure other users back to. When Home first came out, we briefly dabbled in its mostly empty, sterile environment, but it looks like things have developed since then. Check out ten of the coolest places to visit in Home...

So, the much-vaunted PlayStation Home has been with us a few weeks now. It's still a bit dull though, isn't it? Once you've made your avatar, rearranged your furniture and spent a little while evading the inevitable deluge of "A/S/L/?" demands in the plaza, there's actually remarkably little to do. So we've decided to step in and shake up the fun with some patented GamesRadar F***ing About (tm). Try these for

Think customizable avatars are a passing fad? Well you’re only half correct. With the recent emergence of the Wii’s Check Mii Out channel and some late competition from Xbox 360’s spanky new NXE Avatars, Miis are still hip to be spherical two years later.