The new and improved Alumni hub also includes a Xi Museum Shop, which has 11 unique items for sale – including full-size Maximum Tilt bikes for your personal spaces to your own version of Jess’s Xi party apartment (can you figure out how to open the safe?). You can also pick up your own Stapler active item for your apartment, who will share new words of wisdom with you every day, as well as an incredibly cute Stapler companion that can accompany you throughout PlayStation Home.

In the Holiday spirit of gift-giving, Lockwood Publishing releases a revolutionary item this week. The Lockwood Gift Machine is the answer to every user’s shopping woes: Simply visit the Sodium store in the PlayStation Home Mall this Thursday to pick up the Gift Machine for FREE (it even comes with 64 free Lockwood tokens – additional tokens are available for purchase) and then choose up to six people from your friends list, select an item from a preloaded range of Lockwood gifts, and the Gift Machine will gift wrap the item(s) and send it directly to the intended recipient(s)!

The PlayStation Home Mall gets another update this week with new Burn Zombie Burn costumes (because even zombies are in a festive mood these days), a line of new music items (including a boombox made for the chiptune music act 8 Bit Weapon – this item includes remastered versions of crowd-favorites such as “Closer” and “Fallout in the Wasteland”), the World’s Most Colorful Suit (understatement of the century), five versions of Chess for your personal space (!), and, of course, Jellyfish hats (which I am vowing to wear all throughout the remainder of the year).

Finally, the PlayStation Home Community Theater airs a new episode of the uber-popular PS Nation videocast this week. In the latest episode, the PS Nation crew waxes philosophical on the awesomeness that is Dead Nation and Hoard before gushing over the Killzone 3 beta (mechs, jetpacks, and melee kills – oh my!). Shameless plug action: Check out the PS Nation podcast for an in-depth chat with Ilari Kuittinen of Housemarque (makers of Dead Nation).

See you in Home!

Please note that, in observance of the Holidays, PlayStation Home will not update on Thursday, December 30th. The weekly PlayStation Home content publish will resume on Thursday, January 6th. We wish you all a wonderful Holiday season and look forward to another year of awesome content in 2011. Have a safe and fun New Year!

Novus Prime, the recently released space combat game exclusive to PlayStation Home, also receives an update this week. Pilots who have earned the rank of Airman or Captain will receive pilot jacket rewards upon reporting for duty on Thursday, December 16th. Earth Fleet is also proud to announce the new Mini-Mech companion (there’s no longer any need to walk alone!).

Sodium celebrates its one year anniversary with a special sale and new rewards. Watch this video to learn more.

Konami is throwing their first event this weekend, and you are invited! Check out the Konami Penthouse in PlayStation Home this weekend for a Soccer-themed party. Wear your Konami gear and earn more points. The more Konami Soccer items you wear, the more points you get!

This Thursday, December 16th, the PlayStation Home Mall will receive an enormous update. Just in time for the peak of the holiday season, our friends over at Doublesix Games will release some hilarious Burn Zombie Burn costumes.

Speaking of the holiday items, Codename releases some festive tops for the guys and the gals as well as a White Christmas mini-game. And check out this ridiculously awesome “Santa on a Reindeer” costume from Codeglue!

Also available this week from the PlayStation Home Mall: New Ghostbusters and “Mad Scientist” furniture items (these can be found in the LOOT store), a musical “Ballerina Box” for your personal spaces, and nDreams’ epic “Bling Reaper” costume (also pictured below).

Those of you who pick up the full PlayStation Network game, Tales From Space: About A Blob, when it releases next year, will be able to unlock special rewards in PlayStation Home by successfully completing select levels in the game. See the below for a sneak peek of some of these exclusive rewards.

The PlayStation Home Community Theater receives another update this week, with episode 7 of Replay with Doc: CastOffs, now playing in-world (in this episode Doc interviews War Princess from the Tester 2). Also airing this week in the PlayStation Home Theater is a full episode of Buso Renkin, the popular anime show from Viz Media. Be sure to log in to PlayStation Home this week to watch these awesome videos and pick up rewards (including the new Tester 2 “Game Over” shirt, available from the Tester 2 Theater, and the PlayStation Home 2-Year Anniversary shirt, available in the Community Theater).

On that note, we want to invite all of you out to a live event in the PlayStation Home Theater with the finalists from The Tester 2 on Monday, December 20th between the hours of 6:00pm and 8:00pm PST (9:00pm and 11:00pm EST). Chat with the finalists of the latest season of The Tester and hear about their experiences firsthand, only at this exclusive PlayStation Home event.

Finally, I want to remind you all that the holiday celebrations continue in the mega-popular Winter Wonderland space, now accessible via PlayStation Home’s Navigator. Be sure to visit the Winter Wonderland daily between now and December 25th for new games, quests, and rewards.

See you in Home!

We’ve also been hard at work at expanding the Burn Zombie Burn! universe since the game was released in March. With our new Home space, set in a themed graveyard, you can literally walk amongst the undead in the same way as you do in game. There’s also a cool maze populated with some zombies too. Naturally, there’s a selection of apparel available for purchase as well.

In addition to our new Home space, there’s also a patch out now that has YouTube and background music support. This means you can record in-game footage and then upload it to YouTube to show off your skills. Background music support means you can select music to playback in game via the XMB and the music you have stored on your PlayStation 3. Enjoy!