14 DAY TRIAL // Sony put on display quite a lot of new things at the Tokyo Game Show and one of the most overlooked of them was the presentation of the PlayStation Room, which is now headed to the PSP handheld. It seems that the fresh social space is set to arrive at some point during winter as part of a firmware update and will be offered on both the all-new Go and on older generation consoles.
The PlayStation Room is pretty similar to the Home space introduced on the PlayStation 3. Players are free to create avatars and then meet and interact with others in a virtual world of sorts. The Room spaces for each player can be re-designed and players are free to move to the places of their friends. Sony also plans to allow gamers to blog in the Room space, share photo albums and information on the videogames that they have been playing on the PlayStation Portable.
Initial screenshots shown at the TGS hint that the PlayStation Room will be somewhat less realistic than the Home space for the PS3, with avatars being more cartoony and the spaces themselves less populated with details.
Sony has said that it is pretty content with the performance of the Home launch, as about 35% of those who have a PS3 have visited the social space. At the moment, the company is using it mostly to promote upcoming videogames by creating custom spaces and allowing players to get items, such as clothing, which bear themes like Killzone 2 or SOCOM. The PlayStation Room will likely be used in the same way but for PlayStation Portable releases.
It remains to be seen whether owners of the handheld will be interested in it or not, considering that the cartoon look will likely turn off the more hardcore crowd that uses the Sony device.