New in PlayStation Home: SOCOM’s Golden AK-47, Monkey Island Space & Items, and Gamer’s Lounge Refresh

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Early in the history of PlayStation Home, leading developers embraced the platform as a means to expand players’ gaming experiences via content that unlocked in-world after certain performance milestones were reached in-game. The PlayStation 3 community reacted very positively to this type of game integration, rushing into PlayStation Home to gather rewards from games such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, Street Fighter IV, Mega Man 10, White Knight Chronicles, Tekken 6, Resident Evil 5, PixelJunk Shooter, and many more.

Tomorrow, April 15th, we take the next step in the evolution of the platform with the release of the SOCOM OPFOR game space, which will allow fans of the franchise to assemble an assault weapon in a PlayStation Home mini-game and then load out into SOCOM: Confrontation with a fully-playable Golden AK-47 – an exclusive weapon only available to the most skilled players who can successfully complete the aforementioned mini-game in 12 seconds or less. Associate Producer KC Coleman had this to say about this landmark event in PlayStation Home history:

The ability [for PlayStation Home users] to unlock the Golden AK-47 in SOCOM: Confrontation is a huge step forward for Home as a platform and for the fans of the PS3 in general. We’ve long prided ourselves on being able to expand the experience of favorite PS3 titles by creating complementary content in Home, but this is the first time we’ve brought that experience back around to the disc game.

It’s truly a win-win-win situation. It’s a win for Home because we have opened up a huge door that will allow developers to continue to blur the line between PlayStation Home and PS3 games. It’s a win for SOCOM: Confrontation as a title because it allows them to continue to offer great content to players. And, of course, it’s a win for the millions of fans of Home and SOCOM: Confrontation because they get exclusive, meaningful, and 100% free content that is unlocked not from merely downloading an expansion pack, but by playing a fun game.

In addition to the Golden AK-47 Assembly game, the SOCOM OPFOR space boasts the highly-addictive 5-Finger Fillet mini-game and leaderboards. Check out this video for a fly-through of this new space and some of the thrilling content that resides within.

Our friends over at LucasArts continue to bring tons of awesome content to their throngs of fans in PlayStation Home. This week will see the introduction of the hugely-popular Monkey Island franchise into the ever-growing world of PlayStation Home. Show your affinity for our hapless hero Guybrush Peepwood…err, I mean Threepwillow…err, I mean, Threepwood, by heading to the PlayStation Home Mall this Thursday and picking up the has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed Ghost Pirate Ship personal space (complete with rewards), the tons of associated furniture items (available in massive bundles at reduced prices), and the array of Monkey Island costumes (LeChuck, Elaine Marley, Stan the Salesman, and, of course, Mr. Fancy Pants himself).

Also releasing (or should I say, re-releasing) this week is the new and improved Gamer’s Lounge. Named by the PlayStation Home community, for the PlayStation Home community, the Gamer’s Lounge has been redesigned completely at the behest and request of our most loyal users. We’ve added music, a Liar’s Dice mini-game, a ticker that pulls directly from the official PlayStation Twitter account (so you can stay up to date with all of the official PlayStation news without having to log out of PlayStation Home), and a survey that rewards participants with a special virtual item.

Gamers Lounge Liars Dice Gamers Lounge Survey

The Gamer’s Lounge will now host our daily Featured Game parties, which have previously been held at the Listen@Home kiosk in Central Plaza. These daily events serve as a rallying point for the PlayStation Home community to meet up with friends new and old and launch into the latest and greatest PS3 and PSN titles. For the unveiling of the new and improved Gamer’s Lounge, we will be challenging one another to multiplayer matches of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves. Come out on launch night between the hours of 4:00pm and 8:00pm PT (7:00pm and 11:00pm EST) to take part in some UNCHARTED 2 action, and then come back over the weekend to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, MLB 10: The Show, and Aliens vs. Predator.

See you in Home!

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89 Comments

5 Author Replies

  • I hated what happened when I first played the game. Now year after maybe I should give it a chance.

  • Any update on the other Irem items?

    • Yes! There are more Irem items coming this week – school uniforms for both the guys and the girls.

      Please note that due to the volume of content regularly published in Home, we do not announce everything here on the Blog. I do try to answer all the questions I can in the comments section, but always recommend that you all check the Latest Updates tab (under the Community tab in your Menu Pad) each Thursday for a full list of all the content we have released that week.

  • MW2 supports game launching??

  • I’ll just wait for socom 4 and then I’ll tell if I ever socoms games again.

  • thats cool, would like to see this in more games. i like this idea better, do stuff in home to unlock content in the real game. much better then unlocking stuff in home.

  • Sorry i dont play socom confrontation anymore as slant six really screwed up this game badly no matter how many patch updates they release they still cant get it right heck patch 1.60 is still buggy to me.

  • All games support game launching.

  • **if I’ll ever play** socoms games again…

    sorry

  • Final Fantasy costumes coming tomorrow? Thx!

  • will Home ever get jumping or challenge someone to a street fight with ragdoll physics

  • Is there Internet browser access yet in the Lounge?

  • I still don’t get why they keep adding facultative stuff like avatar clothing, objects and rooms instead of incorporating open voice chat. I would certainly go there if I could talk with everybody using my headset… Heck I could even throw in a few bucks for that privilege if money is a problem! Come on stop feeding this turkey so we can finally EAT IT!!!

  • I approve of the lounge upgrade but hosting the launch parties there? Now its going to become a rowdy obnoxious place like the plaza. :(

    • This is actually something that we’ve started doing simply because users have been suggesting it over and over. We anticipate the GL being quite active, but with the crowd being more focused on meeting people to launch into the Featured Game of the evening (or just socializing with other fans) as opposed to the mish-mash of Central Plaza.

      But if this somehow doesn’t work out, rest assured that we’ll be standing by to take requests to move the Featured Game parties elsewhere.

    • To underline what Locust_Star said, the plan is to frame Featured Game nights in a more appropriate location for activities focused on talking about games and game launching with friends new and old.

      If you’re really into a particular title or curious about one, I suggest coming out and seeing what it’s all about. We’ve discovered that people are using these daily gatherings to share trophy gathering tips, build clans of friends who are into the same title, just use it as a place to chill out between multiplayer rounds or to strategize for the next round.

      You never know, we might manage to bring more game developers in to chat or game launch with you.

  • Cant wait!

  • holy jumping [DELETED], MONKEY ISLAND!!!!!

    yes, yes, yes!!!!!!

    I hope this means we’ll be getting the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition soon, and with 24-bit losslessly compressed music! Can’t wait to hear the live music with HD audio quality on my PS3!

    I’m guessing this means that Tales of Monkey Island will be the next PSN release from TellTale, once Sam & Max Season 3 is near the end?

    Now we just need a personal space for Sam & Max! It would be awesome for it to be the street their office is on, along with some of the interiors.

    Rock on!

  • It’s awesome to have Home to game integration. Unfortunately your first attempt was for such a horrible game. I got rid of Socom Confrontation a while ago. Nice feature though.

  • Is the Hot Shots Golf survey ever going to get fixed? It has not worked since the space opened. Also, will we get the Killzone Radec costume anytime soon or at all?

  • Damn, I thought we could use the golden AK47 in Home… I don’t play SOCOM anymore. I play MAG now. Will there be any Home to Game integration with MAG anytime soon?

  • This would have been relevant when the game first game out….not a year and a half after it is release.

  • Will there be a Heavy Rain personal space? The modern house that Ethan and his family start out in is really awesome.

  • This is a great update,,, great work managers…

  • Nice update but… are we ever going to have HEAVY RAIN content?

  • Sounds like a great update, thanks for the heads up Locust!

    Is this anything like the Gamer’s Lounge update that Japan got a long time ago?

    I was wondering if you could comment on the Final Fantasy costumes that I’ve seen people wearing around NA Home. They say that they use a Media program which exchanges the currency of the costumes from EU or Japan Home to NA Home US currency. Even though they say they are paying for these items, is it okay to do? I hope that you or someone else from management can shed some light on this one. I’ll be waiting for them to legitimately arrive in the NA Mall, as I’m sure the costumes be there very soon. I guess some people are just more impatient than others and have to have things first.

    Thanks. :)

    • It’s a completely new and unique Gamer’s Lounge!

      Unfortunately, I cannot comment on unannounced content. But do stay tuned to this blog…you never know what we’ll release next!

  • Can’t wait to see Gamer’s Lounge’s change.

  • I wish Sony stop wasting money on home and use all those resources to improve the xmb to make it more user friendly like XBL.But if they haven’t i guess they are getting something out of it.I haven’t been on Home like 8 months ago, i know it has improve but it feels so apart from the xmb, in XBL everything is so…good, the community is great,parties,community play dates etc. wheres all that in PSN. I love my ps3 but i wish PSN was more like XBL, i dont mind paying a fee i just want a premium service. Thank you for reading this, i just want it to get it out of my chest. PS3 #1

  • More focused huh? Well we’ll see and hopefully it will work out. Would be nice to have more GAMERS in the gamers lounge.

    There’s getting to be to many games out there to just have a party for one each day. Ever thought of doing more? You could do an older/newer game thing because games like GT5 Prologue, Burnout Paradise, PAIN and High Velocity Bowling never seem to come up in the rotation. Incidentally each of these games can be bought off of the PSN store so it would give good exposure to non-retail titles.

    By the way will the new lounge have an ambient music/sounds? Its so quiet in there that even the bubble machines liven things up.

    • “There’s getting to be to many games out there to just have a party for one each day. Ever thought of doing more? You could do an older/newer game thing because games like GT5 Prologue, Burnout Paradise, PAIN and High Velocity Bowling never seem to come up in the rotation. Incidentally each of these games can be bought off of the PSN store so it would give good exposure to non-retail titles.”

      We’ve thought of doing more and may very well do multiple titles in the future. In the meantime, I’ve added Burnout Paradise and High Velocity Bowling to the last week of May! We’ll aim to do PAIN in June as well.

  • @ neopunisher You seem to be pretty deep into X-BOT mode there. Doesn’t Microsoft have a blog or forum of some sort for you to trash-talk HOME on?

  • this is gunna be a sweet update..and its nice to see the start of a whole new era for game unlocks with HOME..this is gunna do wonders for game sales and HOME its self…nice job team…and a ghost pirate ship..can ya here the woohooo’s where you are..cuz im yelling em..lmao

  • glad you guys finally decided to move the game launches to a space that doesn’t tend to freeze you 90% of the time. and i hope the gamer’s lounge can become as bad ass as the Music Cafe over in Japan. or, half as cool. the golden AK-47 is kind of cool But that game has been on it’s way out for a while and will soon be dead with SOCOM 4 on its way. to little to late.

  • this is really nice feature winning items on home that apply to games , yeah SOCOM 4 been out for a long time so most people probably dont play it or even have the game , but i have a feeling SONY will try to apply this with games like MAG and who knows maybe other game studios would try to do the same per say getting a special wepon or armor for Assassins creed 2 game , by scoring something by playing Vendetta

  • Finally, the US game lounge has been a disapointment, especially compared to Europe and Japan.

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    @Locust_Star When are we going to get OPEN Voice Chat Again?

    Or is this going to be taken over by our XMB with Cross Game Chat?

    I’d Like to know if the HOME Team has been working on OPEN Voice Chat again or not.

    Allot of People Request to have our Open Voice Chat Not sure why we havent Heard anything about this feature coming back in HOME or not.

    I’d Like to have some closure on this Please and Thank You :D
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  • K I am interested 2 see if there will be more mini games coming 2 home. I would like 2 see some more resident evil costumes, as well some more hairstyles, and a Siren space update. Plus I never got a chance to experience Xi and am interested 2 see it return. More music would be so awesome. I luv the work you guys do on home and know u can’t possibility achieved all of that by happenstance but im stoked to see what u hard working, talented, creative guys will cook up next. LUV YAS. =)

  • ..i like the twitter feed to, like in AC Space aswell.

  • Well all of this is useless to me until I see the improved gamer’s space tomorrow. By the way congratulations on finishing the gamer’s space that should have been finished a while ago but at least its done now. On behalf of MAG gamer’s I would like to request we get a public MAG space with sand tables with the possibility’s of exclusive Clan rooms to those that own the game and a mini game with 16 people (for the public) or versus clan game. I think this is one of the few games that deserves such a space as planning and strategy go hand and hand with MAG. Also I talked to other MAG members and most if not none would buy the costumes in store but would use the MAG space.

  • I find this not to bad of an update I look forward to getting on thursday, now this is me but I personaly hope Home stays voice chat free true alot want it back but me included just as many if not more don’t want it back, if you wanna mic talk add the person and call em or go to a personal space. Other then that I looking to be spending alot of time on Home

  • Game Launching has just took a step forward. Looks like we will have a more party like atmosphere. Great work! See you in Home.

  • How much will the Ghost Pirate Ship personal space be?

  • Shall the final fantasy XIII costumes come to NA home? I’ve seen people in them, but hope to find a more….um….legit way to own them
    Please reply??^^;
    kaythanksbye
    ~me }{

  • once again can we please get voice chat back or when can we get our most requested features. the reguarly gamelaunching is better than featured because the people you gamelauch with are still with you and its a better party. PLEASE ADD MORE FEATURES HOME WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE AND CAN I GET A RESPOND BACK PLEASEEEEEE I NEVER DO THANK YOU IF YOU RESPOND

  • @32 “a lot” is 2 words. mis-spell of the day.
    And I can’t wait for this integration with Socom: Constipation, it will be awesome to actually have something in Home to directly link to gameplay like this! thanks for the disclosure about these new features!

  • will the ff 13 costumes be out this week also getting a little annoyed seeing people wearing them already when they arnt for sell in any of the stores i can find lol am i missing something here

  • Cool update, finally the Gamers Lounge will be a space worth visiting

  • I’ve been clamoring for a Gamer’s Lounge refresh for months, but not this. I still think (in addition to this) it should be a huge arcade-like PlayStation interactive museum, detailing the history of PlayStation.

  • OK SOCOM development guys I MEAN REALLY RUNNING OUT OF” brilliant ideas “? SOCOM IS NOW officially GETTING boredom HUGE BOREDOM” ??IF ANYTHING FIX THE DARN theater or PLAZA”? the PLAZA”S OLD WHY SOCOM “? thats OLD “A GOLDEN AK-47 ‘ ? maybe a shortcut to thinking ‘…..??????

  • voice chat in home … yeah , great idea , i really look forward to hearing some pre-pubescent voice tell me to go fork myself .NOT!!!!!

  • Thank you, thank you, thank you for FINALLY moving the Featured Game Launching events out of the dreaded Central Plaza! Now I’ll actually be able to successfully participate in the featured game events without freezing 5 times in a row. I’m one of the people who has been asking for this for months and I couldn’t be happier. Thanks for listening! :)

  • MAG PERSONAL SPACE PLEASE – WANT TO SEE RAVEN HEADQUARTERS AND ALL THE HI-TECH STUFF WITH SPYDER OUTFIT AND ACCOUTREMENTS! BIG WORD HUH?! WELL, SONY DOES HAVE SOME INTELLIGENT FANBOYS LIKE ME, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF! :D

  • @ dark_midori…. Socom 4 hasn’t even launched yet… unless your from the future… and if so is it everything I dreamed it would be?? also do they have flying cars yet?? LOL

  • Hey Locust, any news of new MAG content?

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