215w ago - When Home first opened to the public late last year, the public reaction was skeptical and negative. There really wasn't much to do beyond customizing your character and walking around. It seemed like nothing more than a glorified chat system.

As the excitement around Second Life collapsed and Google cancelled their 3D avatar project "Lively", people questioned whether there really was a need or purpose to these 3D avatar systems at all.

Now, Home's core feature set has improved, there are more spaces to explore, much more elaborate mini-games, and Xi is arguably the first piece of "destination content" that is really good enough to pull people to the system.

However, Home is still very much an unfinished work in progress with most of its potential unrealized, but it's fleshed out enough where you can play it and easily understand where they are headed.

Here are the top seven reasons that PlayStation Home will eventually be a success:

Disney World Epcot Style Entertainment Advertising

PlayStation Home aims to host lots of corporate sponsored virtual spaces like Disney World's Epcot Center hosts corporate sponsored pavilions. TV and print ads are becoming less and less effective, yet companies still need to show their products to...

227w ago - CNET reported on nine reasons why they feel the Blu-ray format will succeed as follows today:

1. Digital downloads will not eliminate the need for discs anytime soon.

2. Having one clear standard is a big advantage.

3. Blu-ray isn't going to be replaced by another disc format anytime soon.

4. Prices for large-screen HDTVs will continue to drop.

5. Prices for Blu-ray players will continue to drop.

6. Prices for Blu-ray discs will drop to near DVD price levels.

7. Sony will sell lots of PlayStation 3 game consoles.

8. Sony can't afford to have Blu-ray fail.

9. Sony and its partners will figure out a way to have Blu-ray resonate with the public.

As always, feel free to agree or disagree below and list your reasons you think Blu-ray will make it, fade away, or muddle about in a place between success and failure, forever eliciting praise and criticism.

232w ago - Everyone was probably glad to know that the PS3 managed to sell more than a 150k during November. And while many Sony fans would see the glass half full, analysts and skeptics would see the glass half-empty, considering that the PS3 and PS2 combined didn't come close to the Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii's numbers.

However, selling a console during this generation wasn't Sony's priority for the PS3 to begin with. Good numbers or not, Sony already accomplished what they wanted from their third-generation console.

It all started back in E3 2005 with an article on IGN comparing Sony's and Microsoft's console specs. A lot of people are going to say "But the specs have changed since then."

However, it's not the specs that gave away the PS3's general purpose, it was the intention of the specs. The one comment that stands out above them all in the article is the one that pinpoints what the PS3 has displayed in realtime gameplay (at present) and for what Sony was really using the PS3 for, as the comments states:

"Sony's CPU is ideal for an environment where 12.5% of the work is general-purpose computing and 87.5% of the work is DSP calculations. That sort of mix makes sense for video playback or networked waveform analysis, but...

241w ago - Bet you never thought you'd hear the day that Sony said they'd like the XBox 360 to succeed in Japan, but they recently have said so.

Shuhei Yoshida, Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, expressed the respective thought as if the XBox 360 sells well, then this will further push the concepts of High Definition gaming to local consumers which can only be a good thing for all companies involved in the gaming market.

To quote: Sony's president of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, has said that he wants Microsoft's XBox 360 to succeed in Japan in order to help push the concepts of high-definition gaming to local consumers.

With Nintendo's Wii the most popular console in the Japanese market, Yoshida would like both the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 to sell well in order to convince punters of a more sophisticated take on next-generation gaming.

"I like to see people here in Japan showing interest in high-definition gaming and more sophisticated gaming experiences," offered Yoshida.

268w ago - When Microsoft first announced their intentions to back the underdog HD DVD format as the high definition format of the future, many insiders and press alike questioned the motives of the large software company.

Microsoft doesn't own any film content to distribute and the one product which could have benefited from a larger capacity disc - the Xbox 360 - had already shipped with only DVD support. Most soon realized that Microsoft never wanted HD DVD to succeed, only to stall adoption of Blu-ray long enough for digital downloads to become a reality.

This, of course, was all speculation based on analysis of the situation, but it made perfect sense and was being reinforced by Microsoft's strong push for adding content to their Xbox Live digital distribution service.

Recently, the UK newspaper The Guardian sat down with the Senior Regional Director, Northern Europe, Entertainment & Devices Division for Microsoft, Neil Thompson, and briefly discussed how he felt about Microsoft's decision to support HD DVD now that the format has died.

Oddly enough, he laughs off the question. "The horse that we're fundamentally backing is the one that says the future of entertainment content is online digital distribution. I would argue that we backed the right horse."

He continued,...