When I heard the news that Sony is redesigning PlayStation Home from the ground-up, my first thought (like probably many of yours) was… People actually play that? Sony must feel the same, because this overhaul is bringing some significant upgrades that all kinds of gamers will appreciate.

I’ve popped in on Home now and then over the years, and yes, there are always plenty of people there, hanging out, playing mini games, or collecting stuff to deck out their personal “Harbor Studio” space. But I never quite got what the big deal was, and I know loads of others who feel the same. For most, it’s a footnote, a sideshow curiosity in the annals of PlayStation history.

The new "Action District"

Mostly I’ve always been amazed that Sony has the gall to charge real-world money for virtual goods that serve no purpose whatsoever. The tchotchkes for sale inside Home are clothes, furniture, and accessories, which are fine, but they do nothing at all to improve your gaming experience. The same could be said about Xbox’s avatar store, but I’ve never spent money on anything there, either. Why would I? Bragging rights, so all of my avatar’s little avatar friends can ooh and aah over my supreme fashion sense? Give me a break.

The new "Pier Park" (yes, you can ride the Ferris Wheel)

To make Home more appealing to gamers like myself, Sony’s new “hub and districts” design organizes content by genre instead of by game. You’ll find places like the Action District, Sportswalk, Adventure District, and Pier Park (for puzzles and mini games). The Central Plaza is going away entirely to make room for the new “Hub,” which functions as a more streamlined core user experience, but you’ll keep your Harbor Studio and all of your personal trophies. They’re even updating the game engine.

The new PlayStation Home central "Hub"

But the big news is quests. Like achievements and trophies, quests are meant to give added purpose to your actions within Home by awarding you for the games and activities you participate in. The idea is that players who choose to can use quests to turn the entire Home experience itself into one big game. The video above goes into more detail about this concept and how it will make Home a more interesting place to “live.”

So if you’ve never indulged in Home, do these redesign plans make you more likely to jump in?

The reimagined PlayStation Home is expected sometime before Christmas.

A map of the overhauled new PlayStation Home

Today Sony upgraded PlayStation Home — the HD online virtual space where you can interact with other gamers and play casual games — to version 1.5, with some big enhancements. This news got me thinking… What’s the point of PlayStation Home?

As a PS3 owner, I’ve fired up Home a few times and poked around. It’s an interesting place, and I always liked how major PS3 franchise titles like Uncharted had their own levels where you could play mini-games to unlock goodies that your avatar can collect or even wear. I was put off by how most of the collectibles and customizations actually cost real-world money.

As online virtual worlds goes, the graphical quality is very high. The options available for customizing your avatar’s look are impressive, and there’s no shortage of things to do. New spaces are being added all the time — most of them themed around popular games like Little Big Planet or Assassin’s Creed — with stuff to do there. Downloading and exploring these spaces costs nothing, and you’ll always find plenty of other real-world players wandering around, playing mini games, and interacting with one another.

But again, I’m forced to wonder… What’s the point? Most online worlds have missions, rewards, and specific goals to accomplish. Everything in Home is casual and optional. There are no clear goals, just ads for Sony properties everywhere you look — games, movies, TV shows, etc. And at their most basic level, most of the downloadable spaces are little more than interactive ads for PS3 games.

A lot of people use Home and enjoy its casual, breezy atmosphere, but those who like more structure and purpose behind their play time will get bored fast. This has typically been my experience. The technology is impressive, but the experience is hollow.

Do you agree? Disagree? Why?

Sony’s 1.5 upgrade was implemented with the purpose of making higher-quality games possible within Home. Game developers are getting a host of new physics tools, animation tools, enhanced graphics capabilities, and more. Essentially, they hope to provide players with a more robust experience, such as actual first-person shooters and racing games; genres Home has only dabbled with in the past will now become a real option. And as always, Home will remain free-to-play for all PS3 owners.

The question is: will this be enough to bring in hardcore players who have been avoiding Home due to its “casual” nature? Here are some new screens showing off some of what Home is now able to do.

Did you own an original PlayStation? Did you buy it when it first came out? If so, be aware: you’re dating yourself.

The PlayStation 1 has turned fifteen years old. Can you believe it? Since 1995, Sony has sold more than 377 million PS1s, PS2s, and PS3s.

I mean, look at the big plastic buttons and ports on that old thing. By today’s sleek & sexy standards, this thing looks like a child’s toy. But on the plus side, it was the first game console to ever use discs instead of cartridges — a format that would soon be adopted by every console maker.

To celebrate 15 years of the PlayStation, Sony is offering free themes for PS3 and PSP on the PS Store, a PS Home commemorative PS1 “ornament” for your avatar to sit and stare at, and weekly discounts on PS1 titles from the PS Store.

My first impression of Home was not that great. Even though the initial loading time was bearable, connecting to it was a hassle. I got connection errors the first two times I attempted to log on and when I finally did, I had to wait for a download of a small file.

I finally got to the character customization screen, which was quite easy to use but because of the limited number of hairstyles and clothes Home looked more like Cloneworld to me. I know that this is still in beta but hopefully for the final release more styles will be opened for users. I don’t really care about the clothes as much as personal appearance since I’m just a T-shirt and jeans guy anyway.

Controlling my avatar was very instinctive and the preprogrammed movements can be quite funny at times especially the dance moves. One niggle I have is that every time you go to a certain place outside your “home” you’ll have to download it initially. This can be quite a disconnected experience. It’s a good thing that you also have a “download in background” mode but then you feel like your avatar is under house arrest because it can’t do anything without downloading the file first.

I downloaded the plaza to my PC and had my first Home “interactive” experience. I nice girl from Texas (Whiteturtle, hope I got it correctly) talked to me (my handle is indie2004) and we got to discuss some stuff about the music that we listen to. But here’s where the potential catastrophic problem of Home lies — a bunch of guys started buzzing around Whiteturtle and began typing some initially innocuous stuff that slowly turned nasty. In addition to this, some guys with a headset were also saying some inappropriate things to her. The big discrepancy of females and males meant that most of the guys start acting like peacocks on Viagra trying to get the attention of the girls. I don’t know what they wanted to happen — it’s not like you can really hook up with anyone virtually. Even the Playstation 3 is not that powerful to do that. I made some asinine comment about their behavior and these two guys started harassing me verbally. If Home had been like GTAIV, I’d have been beaten up already. Some kind of moderation is desperately needed inside Home’s virtual world. But with the high rate of tweens and immature college-types this is going to be a big problem for Sony. I hope there’s going to be a room for the more civilized PS3 owners to mingle.

Overall, Home was a shallowly interesting experience. It really is like Sims Online but for those who want decent conversation, it may be hard to find it. What you’ll find though are a lot of rude people.

Here’s hoping that Sony sells a very expensive Kratos power pack so I can smite down those foulmouthed idiots.

Sony finally opened the doors of the closed beta to other users through an announcement that it is available for download today, December 11. I blogged about rumors of Home getting ready within ten days but it turns out we wouldn’t even have to wait that long.

For those who still don’t know about it yet, Home is the Playstation 3′s avatar-based online community where people can interact with other gamers. Some have likened it to The Sims in terms of the presentation and in what you can do.

I’m already downloading the 77mb file. I’ll have more impressions about Home in my next post.

If we’re to believe the Times of London (in an article published December 7), Home will arrive in ten days.

Sony though has denied the report and said that up to now they still have not made any announcements regarding the date on when the open beta will be rolled out. The only thing that Sony would commit to is that it is going to be released by the end of the year.

But with Sony’s commitment for a fall release, the buzz is that the Home open beta will be released before December 21 as that is when fall officially ends and winter begins. The big money is on Sony announcing it on one of these upcoming Thursdays (a day when the company usually makes big announcements).

Joining is quite easy. Interested gamers only need to download a Playstation Home theme that Sony will release. The download is automatically considered as an application to join the beta. Present Home beta users are already automatically included in the expanded beta.