Sony’s new social networking community called Playstation Home has now gone live in the beta stages.

PlayStation Home is a new social networking site, it’s free to use for Playstation 3 owners and it allows them to create an avatar, create your own apartments, join other players in online games, chat and soon the ability to stream music and video.

The release of their virtual clubhouse comes after news that Sony has announced that they are planning on several thousand job cuts. However, their new Playstation Home network could help them bring in some extra needed cash. They have started to come up with ideas of way to make even more money from this by offering new cloths and apartments to buy, plus starting advertising on the various billboards and screens throughout the community.

One big reason why the Playstation Home has been released now is to try and change the minds of customers during this Christmas period. Sony is attempting to compete with Microsoft’s latest Xbox Live revamp where Xbox 360 owners could create their own avatars and play new social games like 1VS100.

However, will their new social networking clubhouse be enough to sway the buyers? I do not think so. Simply because of this new feature, I don’t think it would sway the minds of buyers considering the Xbox 360 already has all of this, plus the price tag of the Playstation is alot higher than the Xbox.

By hunting a bit, you can get an Xbox 360 with 4 games and 2 controllers for around £130, however, if your after a Playstation 3, it will set you back £270 for only 3 games.

Even though the whole idea of PlayStation Home is good, and it’s a great idea for current PS3 owners who want to interact with the games that they already own, I don’t think it will encourage more buyers, unless they reduce the price of the console. So, good try Sony, but I don’t think you’ll have much luck.

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