Sony is launching a social network for PS3 users called Playstation Home, according to news coming out of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today. The network is a 3D virtual world similar to Second Life, says Engadget, except that it's much, much better.
Features include casual games embedded in-world, voice chat, and the ability to invite any user to play a Playstation game against you (games must be Playstation Network capable). Another amazing feature: you can share music and videos from your library with other "residents" in the world, a feature that's drawing comparisons to YouTube. Sharing of movie downloads will also be enabled at some point. And of course there's all the usual Second Life stuff: dressing your avatar, creating an apartment and buying and selling stuff. It's set to launch in beta in April. (See the video below for a demo.)
Initial reviews are extremely positive, despite the typical Sony-hatred that still floats around the blogosphere following their DRM/spyware screw up. It won't rival Second Life directly, of course - the supported platforms are completely different - but there's definitely a sense that Sony has broken new ground with this concept.