GDC 07: Phil Harrison talks more about Home

We've been slowly releasing details from yesterday's bloggers meeting with Phil Harrison. One of the biggest points of discussion (unsurprisingly) was Home. There are still a lot of questions that we had, and Harrison was quite candid about the upcoming "Game 3.0" project:

• Considering the wild support of Home at GDC, why didn't Sony reveal this information earlier? According to Harrison, the idea might have been "too complex to explain" so close to the PS3 launch. It might have been "misunderstood" during a busy launch period. Also, Home simply didn't have the polish it needed to be shown at the PS3 launch. With that in mind, Harrison would have made "no adjustment on the PS3 launch."

• The world of Home will never get too big: additional worlds will spawn when a certain one has become too full. Through matchmaking services, Sony will attempt to place you in an environment you're most likely to have fun.

• Home's arcade games were originally going to be based in Java to make it as easy as possible for indie developers to get content ready. However, they moved away from the language for better performance.

• When asked, "will this sell PS3s?" Harrison quickly answered: "Yes. It's another reason to play PS3 every day."

• Like Nintendo, Sony believes this will attract non-gamers. They've attempted to make the interface as easy as possible. Yes, the characters are in a 3D environment, making it "not 100% accessible."

• Gamers that don't want to use Home are still free to use the XMB for PS3 navigation. "It's still an important interface." Most of the features of Home can still be accessed from the XMB--you simply lose many of the social interaction aspects.

• Home is nothing like Second Life, according to Harrison. The similarities end at both having 3D characters in 3D environments.
  

• The "PlayStation focus" of Home will be what keeps the community together. "PS3 owners all share a love of digital content." Expect the sharing of music, video and game content to be what keeps PS3 owners connected to Home.

• No touching! Your digital avatars in Home will not be able to touch each other. You will, however, be able to jump on each other in LittleBigPlanet.

• Like Nintendo Mii, your digital avatar will be available for use in other games. However, it won't be too easy, says Phil Harrison. Not only does the character model have be exported, but the animation system will need to be moved as well.

It's clear from the enthusiasm of the individuals in the room that everyone's interested in Home. The public beta is going to be available soon, and those of you with PlayStation Network accounts will want to pay attention to your inbox: you may be getting an invite (they're figuring that out, though).