As many of you know Phil Harisson, head of Sony Worldwide Studios, gave a keynote address at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This keynote included some things of particular interest to PS3 owners, one of which was "Home".

Home is to be a PS3- specific online world in which players can set up their own avatar and chat to other PS3 gamers using preset phrases, keyboard chat or voice chat. The game world also includes a game room with pool, bowling and various arcade games.

Harisson showed how one can customize an avatar to suit a variety of tastes as well as customizing your personal room in the world itself, changing wallpapers, furniture, etc.- some accessories will be free while others will have a small charge. In one instance he took a picture of the audience, put the memory stick into the PS3 and created a framed picture in the room of that photo. Video can also be embedded in televisions throughout the house. Home will include a cinema section with trailers from existing movies as well as user- created content thanks to a deal made with the Sony- owned Grouper.com.

Harrison then showed a number of different locations from major publishers and other media companies - showing a sample sports area with a 3D location including mini-games, trailers, and other informational and promotional areas. All of this was done using a developer's in- game assets.

The final bit of the demo was the Hall Of Fame- a place to customize with 3D trophies of your accomplishments which can be then shown to friends. A very large cavern of trophy areas was shown representing the entire library of PS3 games to date.

Home is going to be free for players to download and use, with both public and private areas. It has been confirmed this will be a global service- no limitations by region as to who you can meet. A large- scale beta test will be done starting sometime in April 2007, with the official launch scheduled currently for fall of 2007.