Game 3.0: Second Life on PS3 ?

Sony unveiled two unique Playstation 3 games: "Home", a real-time, networked 3D avatar based community that serves as a meeting place for PS3 users from around the world. And the other one is "LittleBigPlanet", a community based game where users play, create and share what they build with other worldwide PS3 users. Doesn't it sound familar ? Take a closer look:


Wow ... That's basically Second Life with soup up graphics. And it looks like a better environment than second life for "socializing" and "entertainment". However, I don't think these two will compete directly with each other since they are quite different.

First, Sony is targeting the gamers market, even though this maybe a good attempt in reaching the non-gamers (currently dominated by Nitendo Wii), this feature probably won't sell the console by itself. Second, with Sony's long history of engineering proprietary solution (from Betamax to UMD), it's unlikely to have an open developer/business community. And it's also unlikely to have an economy like in Second Life, as I assume most money users spent will go to Sony directly. But on the other hand, I could see huge potential in advertising in this virtual world with PS3's superb graphics capability and gamer target audiences. The Yankee Group forecasted in-game ad revenue to reach $732 million by 2010.


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