E3: Playstation Home Bills Itself As Social Network With 14 Million Players

At this year’s E3 Games expo, Sony made some announcements regarding Playstation Home, their virtual world “social network” that connects Playstation 3 players to one another. The service has doubled from 7 million to 14 million in the last year and players spend an average of 70 minutes per visit playing mini-games and more. Read more about Playstation Home after the jump.

The Playstation Home service was partly a response to XBox Live’s introduction of Avatars and Microsoft’s Wii system. As is usual for Sony, they brought the service to a new level by not only allowing users to have Avatars, but allowing them to play in a virtual world and interact with one another. The network constantly has a large population of users playing games, attending and organizing special events, watching videos, listening to music, meeting new friends, and launching into games together.

One of the most interesting elements of Playstation Home is how big brands provide content within the virtual world. Brands like Activision, Electronic Arts, Capcom Entertainment, NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., THQ and UBISOFT continue to offer mini-games and virtual ‘public spaces’ that allow players to hang out and chat within branded environments. The launch of their new MMO, as well, brings the Home platform almost into the realm of a social network with an app store. Users get to choose their experience or just use the tool for networking. I wouldn’t be surprised if the makers are looking closely at Facebook for inspiration.

With the launch of Sodium One, PlayStation Home’s first massively multiplayer online (MMO) game space, in December 2009, PlayStation Home further evolved into a true social gaming platform, complete with both snack-size mini games and extended gaming experiences to share with both existing friends and new friends met within PlayStation Home. Today, PlayStation Home offers gamers more than 100 ready to play games, 50 discreet public and private spaces to experience, and over 5000 virtual items to collect, with new store fronts available from LucasArts, Lockwood, Loot, Activision and Disney. Additionally, more than 400 comm

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