In addition to showcasing “Home” at the GDC, Sony also used the forum to display their upcoming multiplayer masterpiece LittleBigPlanet. LBP offers each player a fully customizable environment where they can create their own platform style world without the use of a complicated level design system. Players then have the opportunity to invite other players over to explore their world. The demo is slated for a fall release with the full version next year.

Sony officially unveiled their next-gen user-community service “Home” at the GDC in San Francisco. Home will be a persistent 3-D world in which each player communicates and creates through the use of a customizable avatar. Additionally, Home will incorporate the use of personal space, giving gamers a unique “living” area to design and decorate, and public spaces where users can download content, interact with others, and play. Players will also have access to trophies that can be unlocked via various in-game achievements.

I’m thinking I should rename the column “Sony Today.” They just seem to supply an endless stream of oddities. Every move is stranger than the next and now the double talk continues. Only 3 days after Sony exec Phil Harrison exclaimed that Rumble was like so last generation, we get word that Sony is now in bed with Immersion for a partnership that will bring force-feedback tech to upcoming Playstation products. The patent infringement suit between the two parties is now officially dead, imagine that.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has been reviewed by just about every gaming site on the net…twice. Most sites say the same thing; VG is an impressive, but unfinished title, worthy of checking out “down the road”. Now Vanguard is celebrating it’s 1 month birthday and the Devs are rewarding players that have taken the good with the bad who are helping take the title down the road to greatness. From Saturday morning at 5:00 PST until Monday at the same time, all adventuring XP values will be doubled. I don’t know about you, but for me the game just got twice as fun.

When you look at the conversion rates of the Euro to the US dollar you can see that the Europeans will be paying a bit more for their PS3’s next month than we do here in the States. Now Sony has announced that in an effort to cut costs, the Euro version of the PS3 won’t even have the same hardware. The hardware change means PS3s across the pond will lack the same level of backward compatibility as the US and Japanese versions. Good News? Unknown Sony rep called me back and said “PS2 is still in production.”

Sony has announced they will be cutting production costs on the PS3 Cell processor in much the same way we cut costs here in the States; Outsourcing. Additionally Sony wants to move from 90 and 65 nanometer circuits down to 45. The smaller size reduces the per-chip production costs. Don’t look for this to result in lower priced PS3 units, as it will be late 2008 or beyond before the changes take place.

Third-party virtual item and character services are big business. While most MMO publishers combat the issue by banning the accounts of those involved in the real-money trade, Sony opted to join the fray with their Station Exchange. Now comes word that in their first year alone, SOE handled over $1.8 million in sales transactions. One seller was tracked at earning over $37k. You know Big Brother agreed to stay out of the virtual-item game for the time being, why do you keep taunting him?

Folks are getting a nice laugh at Sony (happening more often isn’t it?) following their graphics snafu over at Connect. The PSP download site was plugging a new Gran Turismo HD trailer with a suave little super-car pic. Problem being that the graphic they chose was from Project Gotham Racing 3. The image has since been replaced but screens can be found just about everywhere.

Update: Next time your in your local retailer and you see a sales guy hyping up the PS3’s backwards compatibility to a would be mark, it’s no longer appropriate to laugh. In the best move thus far by Sony, firmware update 1.5 for the PS3 makes most legacy games sparkly and new. Rejoice! You can now unhook your PS2. No actual “patch notes” on the fix but I’m sure it did some other things too.

European gamers can put away their pitchforks and torches; turns out PS3 will be delivered as promised in March. Panic began to spread following Sony CEO Howard Stringers comments to CNet about how excited he was about the “European launch in April.” An SCEE official told Gamesindustry.biz however that Sony is still on track for the March 23rd launch. We all know how important those extra 8 days are.