Ratchet & Clank: Time Travelers is arguably the most interactive environment we’ve published during this phase of Open Beta. Boasting three mini-games ranging from super-casual to über-deep – like the massive Skunk Works’ tower defense game – this space is jam-packed with things to do, rewards to win, virtual items to collect (like a full-on Ratchet outfit), and sheep to wrangle (huh?). We’re even releasing a Ratchet & Clank apartment – set in a galaxy far, far away – that is a must-have for every die-hard fan of the franchise. And this space is even launching ahead of Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, which means that if you want a taste of the future of the Ratchet & Clank series, you have to get into PlayStation Home. Put your eyes on the below vid, as PlayStation Home Director Jack Buser walks us through more details.

We’re celebrating Halloween PlayStation Home-style this year by releasing a very special personal apartment that you can use to “undead yourself” and all of your friends. The Deadquarters is a hideout set on the other side of the proverbial tracks where you can let your inner zombie loose. But the best part isn’t that the Deadquarters transforms you into a zombie upon entry; it’s that the Deadquarters transforms you and all of your friends into zombies upon entry. But we warn you – not everybody wants you to have fun this Halloween. Mr. R. Phunrooner, President of the so-called “Society of People Against Zombies” is on a mission to ban the Deadquarters and all related zombies from the world of PlayStation Home. So if you are decaying and proud of it, you’ll need to log in to PlayStation Home, grab your closest friends, and head over to the Deadquarters to make the transformation this Thursday. You can learn more about this space and what you can do to ensure an epic Halloween in PlayStation Home by visiting http://undeadyourself.com/.

As announced last week, we have partnered with EA SPORTS to produce and distribute exclusive virtual items that serve to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 100% of proceeds for these items will go to the Brees Dream Foundation in support of breast cancer research and awareness programs. Please join us by picking up these items on Thursday and showing your support to all the breast cancer survivors around the world.

You’ve all been waiting since last Thursday’s v1.3 core client update for the highly-anticipated camera item, and that’s why we’re happy to announce that every one of you devoted PlayStation Home community members will now have a free camera. You heard me – free! This camera will automatically appear in your inventory today and will allow you to take photos from the 1st and 3rd person perspective. Any pictures you take will immediately be saved to the “Photo” section of your XMB where you can then share these photos both in-world and out, whether it is in the Picture Frames that decorate your personal spaces or on Flickr, Twitpic, or Photobucket accounts.

You’ll also find two new spaces have been released in PlayStation Home today– the PixelJunk Museum and the MotorStorm Monument Valley Campsite. The PixelJunk Museum is a sleekly designed public area dedicated to the PixelJunk series where you can explore and collect content related to the PixelJunk Eden, PixelJunk Racers, PixelJunk Monsters and PixelJunk Shooter titles. The MotorStorm Monument Valley Campsite is a mesa-top personal space with its own MotorStorm caravan and an amazing vista of the MotorStorm festival across the Valley. There’s also a ton of MotorStorm-themed furniture available to customize this exclusive hideaway. Check out the pics below.

Dethklok – the death metal super group from Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse cartoon – is pleased to announce that their never-ending quest for intergalactic domination has extended into the world of PlayStation Home. Show your support for all things evil (and metal…but mostly metal) and pick up the new Dethklok merch, available in the Mall, and check out the Dethklok video, now live in the Theater. Raise high the horns and rock out in a manner most deadly with Dethklok in Home!

While you’re in the Mall, you can also grab the new Neptune Suite furniture and other assorted virtual items and the new Jon Burgerman line of virtual goods. World-renowned for his hand drawn cartoon characters (which have been shown in galleries around the world), Mr. Burgerman has lent his talents to Home and has produced a special line of animated clothing for the guys and the gals. If you ever wanted a tattoo for your avatar, it’s high time you check out some of Burgerman’s patented designs.

We here at PlayStation Home are all about spreading the love around and supporting important charities. This is why we have partnered with EA SPORTS to produce and distribute exclusive virtual items that serve to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 100% of proceeds for these items will go to the Brees Dream Foundation in support of breast cancer research and awareness programs, so please pick up these items and show your solidarity with all the breast cancer patients around the world. Remember, together we can fight this deadly disease.

UPDATE: If you’re having trouble logging into Home, please follow these instructions.

We know that all of our Home-peoples have been waiting with bated breath for the newest version of PlayStation Home to launch. You’ve been messaging us on the official PlayStation Home forums and hitting us up in-world for all of the details. You’ve been leaving us comments on our Blog posts and on the official PlayStation Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some of you have even been chartering black helicopters and following us to and from our secret meetings, surveilling our every move, searching for evidence of the launch date. Well okay, maybe there hasn’t been so much of that, but you’ve been eager for info. And that’s why we’re all pumped to announce that PlayStation Home v1.3 will be coming to your PlayStation 3s this Thursday, October 1st.

For those of you who didn’t catch the official announcement of the client update in August, here’s the high-level overview. Home v1.3 equals the following things:

• Universal Game Launching. Come this Thursday, you’ll be able to launch from Home into any game whose disc you have loaded into your PS3. This is how it works: Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, MotorStorm, and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar’s head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. Never again will you have to sign out of Home to play with (or against) your friends. Simply insert the disc of your choice while in Home and follow the on screen directions.
• In-Store Item Previewing. This feature will allow you to preview items of clothing on your character in 3D (including the ability to check out multiple items simultaneously to see what combinations best suit your taste). You’ll be able to preview all furniture in 3D as well, complete with zoom and rotate options so you can check your potential purchases from all angles.
• New Emotes and Actions. You can flip a coin with your friends to decide whose apartment to retreat to, or play the old “pick a number between 1 and 100” game to decide who is hosting the next party in Central Plaza. You will also be able to pose your avatar in a variety of ways, adding significantly to your ability to express yourself in-world. Heck, there are even new dances to hit the SingStar Rooms with.
• More Item Types. Including limited use items (like the brand new Shrink Cake that lets you shrink your avatar to a tiny size) and portable objects (think: Bubble Machine). These will be available shortly after the launch of the client. This list of objects includes a free camera that you can use to snap pictures from either a 1st or 3rd person view. The photos will automatically be saved to the Photo section of the XMB, from which you can then upload to the picture frames you have hanging in your personal spaces. Dates for the camera and other items will be announced very soon, so stay tuned to this blog (and be sure to check the Latest Updates tab in your Menu Pad, under Community).
• Tons of Improvements. We’ve added some new categories of clothing (composite and outfits) that will allow you to customize your avatar with greater ease. We’ve optimized the targeting system. We’ve fixed a bunch of the bugs you’ve been reporting on the official Home Support forum. We’re even giving you the option to determine your cache size (you can choose from 3, 5, 8, and 12 GB).

Going hand in hand with the v1.3 launch, we here at SCEA will be releasing an updated Central Plaza. We think you’ll find the new World Map Travel Center to be quite handy when it comes to navigating the vast, expansive world of PlayStation Home. This easy-to-use tool will be located right next to the new and improved Listen@Home kiosk, where you can listen to music and participate in community music events. On top of all this, we’ve added leaderboards and rewards to the ever-popular Saucer Pop mini-game and even placed a kiosk in Central Plaza from which you can grab prizes associated with events and a host of other items and content available from the PlayStation Network (in fact, if you check out this kiosk on launch day, you may just find some free items waiting for you). Watch the video below for a sneak peek of some of the new additions to CP.

We probably could’ve stopped there, but we wanted to get as much content to you to celebrate this momentous occasion as we possibly could. If you peep the video below you can get a first look at the new Neptune Suite personal space, also being released this Thursday. In this highly-interactive underwater abode, you can play a variety of built-in mini-games like the multi-player shooter Blast Zone. It even comes with its own pet that interacts with your avatar. And to top it all off, we’re even bringing the popular Hot Shots Golf game space over from Japan for all of you North American fans of this hugely popular franchise. Visit the space this Thursday, participate in our in-world survey, and walk away with a special prize.

See you in Home!

Those of you who visit the new SingStar space this Thursday will find that the critically-acclaimed UK rapper Dizzee Rascal has taken over the VIP lounge. To celebrate the release of his new album Tongue n’ Cheek (and his new SongPack available now at the SingStore), we’re decorating this super elite space with all things Dizzee Rascal, airing some exclusive Dizzee videos, and dropping a bunch of Dizzee-themed virtual items on you (including a few limited edition rewards for all attendees). See the below video if you want to learn more about the content and features in the new SingStar space.

Far Cry 2 fans will be excited to learn that the FC2 game space is being updated with a new mini-game entitled “Reuben’s Report”. This whodunit game will appeal to all of you sleuthy and snoopy types that love to hunt down arms dealers, thwart assassination attempts, and prevent all types of sabotage via explosive devices. Y’know, stuff you do on quiet Sunday afternoons to help pass the time…

Last but certainly not least, we’ll be releasing a handful of new items for your avatar, including Scuba Guy and Space Girl costumes, some Katamari Forever-themed virtual goods, and more.

See you in Home!

As you may or may not know, we announced the upcoming SingStar rooms for PlayStation Home at gamescom in Cologne, Germany a few weeks ago. For those of you SingStar fiends who have since been blowing up my PM box on the official PlayStation Home forums asking “where are those rooms at, Locust?” I’m positively thrilled to confirm that this new game space will be launching two weeks from today on Thursday, September 24th. You can peep some exclusive sneak peek pics from this new space below.

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit this space on opening day is that dance floor reacts to the shapes you throw and that the music will change according to what style on dance the majority of avatars are partaking in. Note: This is where you thank me for not dropping the polka dance on you last update.

There’s also an interactive jukebox in the space where you and your friends can vote for your favorite tracks and the SingStar Music Quiz (which will be accessible in a future update) is there to test the knowledge of the hardest of hardcore music geeks in Home. To top it all off, there will be tons of rewards to be earned and future events galore, so you’ll want to add this space to your Favorites list right from the get-go. You’ll want to check the doors at the back of the SingStar rooms regularly. You never know what might be popping off inside.

On an unrelated, yet equally awesome note, you’ll notice today that Buzz! fully supports game launching in Home. So gather in the Buzz! space to meet other trivia buffs and launch into this hit party game. And while you’re at it, take a moment to go explore the Mall. If you look hard, you’ll find some new free items hidden therein. These free items will only be available for a limited time, so you’ll need to log-in today. Consider it a gift from us to you, the PlayStation Home community.

This special personal space is based on the final stage of Killzone 2 in Scolar Visari’s Palace and is the absolute ideal gathering space for you and your KZ2-obsessed friends. Releasing in tandem with the Visari Throne Room will be a variety of virtual items that you can use to customize your area (including the Helghan Defense Painting – my personal fave). Check out the video below for a sneak peek of this space and other Killzone 2 items available in PlayStation Home.

We know that you guys and gals love collecting personal spaces, furniture, and gear for your avatar, which is why we’ve been working night and day to make this publish the biggest ever virtual items content release in PlayStation Home. In addition to the Killzone 2 Visari Throne Room, we’re also dropping an all-new, all-original personal space on you. The new Post-Apocalyptic Apartment is sure to appeal to your inner Road Warrior, and to celebrate its unveiling we’re offering a value bundle of furniture that runs the gamut from chairs to couches to tables to flooring to storage to assorted décor all at a special introductory price that just can’t be beat. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have approximately 70 items total being released just for this personal space, so the customization options for this area alone are virtually endless.

But that’s not all. No siree. Come this Thursday, you’ll also be able to rep your favorite big cities with the release of some new animated t-shirts that broadcast your hometown pride. And are those animated glow sticks I see too? Watch the video down there and let me know that my mind ain’t playing tricks on me.

As always, this week is jam-packed with events – and we’re counting on seeing you at all of them. Head on over to the official Home Clubs and Events sub-forum at www.us.playstation.com for more details about our daily game launching parties…and a special celebrity look-a-like event planned for this Thursday in PlayStation Home where you can win some of the rarest items ever to appear in our world.

See you in Home!

I got three words to start us off: Universal. Game. Launching. That’s right – you can now launch into any PlayStation 3 game directly from Home. Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, MotorStorm, and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar’s head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. Never again will you have to sign out of Home to play with (or against) your friends. Simply insert the disc of your choice while in Home and follow the on screen directions and you’ll be good to go.

Shop-a-holics will be stoked to see that an in-store item previewing option will be rolled out. This feature will allow you to preview items of clothing on your character in 3D (including the ability to check out multiple items simultaneously to see what combinations best suit your taste). You’ll be able to preview all furniture in 3D as well, complete with zoom and rotate options so you can check your potential purchases from all angles, right down to the nitty gritty. We’ll also offer you the ability to rent certain items and purchase “consumables” (limited use items) when available – such as the new Shrink Potion that lets you shrink your avatar to a tiny size. All in all, we think you’ll find that these new features allow for greater control over the use of your personal items. We’ve even added a new section to the Menu Pad under Personal > My Purchases to help you keep it all organized.

PlayStation Home v1.3 will also see additional portable objects (like the Bubble Machine) made available to the community. To start, we’ll be giving everyone free cameras that you can use to snap pictures from either a 1st or 3rd person view. These photos will automatically be saved to the Photo section of the XMB, from which you can then upload to the picture frames you have hanging in your personal spaces. We’ll be announcing more portable objects very soon, so be sure to check in on this blog often to stay abreast of the latest PlayStation Home item releases. Or just use the Latest Updates tab in your Menu Pad > Community. We here over at the PlayStation Home Community team keep an updated list of all new content releases in this area.

On the subject of portable objects, rest assured that we’ve listened to your suggestions and made some changes to help you better customize your in-world experience. You’ll be able to manually hide any portable object that you encounter, and objects placed by anyone on your Ignore or Block list will also be hidden. We think you all will find that accessing certain mini-games and watching videos will be much easier thanks to these additional options.

There are tons of little updates that you’ll notice when PlayStation Home v1.3 launches. To start, you’ll see that your avatar has additional emotes – including two new action emotes (you can flip a coin with your friends or play the old “pick a number between 1 and 100” game). You will also be able to pose your avatar in a variety of ways (photo op anyone?). We’ve also added some new categories of clothing (composite and outfits) that will allow you to customize your avatar with greater ease. In addition, we’ve optimized the targeting system, added a new queuing system, fixed quite a few pesky bugs, and are giving you the option to determine your cache size (you can choose from 3, 5, 8, and 12 GB) so as to make navigating Home a much smoother experience. As we get closer to launch, we’ll post complete patch notes for the v1.3 client on the PlayStation Home General forum at www.us.playstation.com. So if you haven’t yet signed up for our forums, please take a moment to do so now – and check in often for more details regarding what’s going on in PlayStation Home.

Last but certainly not least, we’ll be launching a SingStar space right around the time that PlayStation Home v1.3 hits your PlayStation 3s. This swanky night club-esque SingStar-themed game space is sure to be the hot new hub for all of you party goers. Whether you want to get down with your friends on the reactive dance floor, vote for your favorite music videos on the Video Jukebox, or test your knowledge at the SingStar Music Quiz, this space promises to have something for every SingStar fanatic.

See you all in Home!

It’s that time again – and by “that time” I mean “the time where I put the proverbial pen to paper and let you all know what’s coming up next in the rapidly-growing world of PlayStation Home.” I think you’ll be glad to see that – whether you come into Home to game launch with your friends, unlock rewards from your favorite games, or check out free music and video content and socialize – there’s a lil somethin’ somethin’ going on in-world this week that you can get down with.

We know that you Home-dwellers just love your rewards, so we’ve worked with the fine folk over at Eidos to ensure that their next release integrates tightly with our platform. Those of you who scoop up the highly-anticipated Batman: Arkham Asylum for your PLAYSTATION 3s next week will be pleased to see that the game unlocks a special Batcave Outpost personal space. It’s safe to say that hardcore Batman fans are going to seriously spazz out when they unlock Bruce Wayne’s secondary lair under Arkham, so if you count yourself a disciple of the Dark Knight, you’d better rush to get your hands on this title when it is released on August 25th.

Hardcore gamers have yet another reason to enter into the PlayStation Home fold as we will be launching a new game-themed event space specifically to host our MotorStorm: Pacific Rift game launching parties, set to occur every Monday night between 6pm and 10pm PT. This space, which marks the first ever “Globe of Death” to publish in Home, will showcase some rad MotorStorm footage and will serve as a hub for all of you racing fanatics in the Home community to meet and launch into games of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. This event space will only be up for a limited time (though we do have some more surprises for fans of the franchise scheduled to release in the not-so-distant future, including a bunch of awesome MotorStorm clothes, so stay tuned to this here blog thingy for more news).

Many core areas of Home will see content updates this week, with new tunes being loaded into the Listen@Home kiosk, new clothes and furniture appearing in the Mall (including animated furniture – this stuff has to be seen to be believed!), and some new videos screening in the Theater. One of these videos, scheduled to go live on Sunday the 16th, is part of the ongoing Criss Angel: Mindfreak event. Much like the Criss Angel: Mindfreak video currently screening in our new 10-Screen Theater, this clip will reward those that dare enter with another exclusive virtual item – this time, a Criss Angel custom coffin table. But you’ll have to come in between the 16th and the 19th if you want this limited item. Those of you who check out this clip will also entered into a giveaway for 1 of 2 Criss Angel: Mindfreak Coffins and 1 of 3 Criss Angel: Burn DVD’s and Book sets (5 winners total).

As a demonstration of the ever-evolving nature of PlayStation Home, there are a few updates scheduled for the EA SPORTS Complex and the Burn Zombie Burn game space. You’ll also see some significant additions to Central Plaza in coming weeks, but you’ll have to keep your eyes on this blog for all the details as they are released. In the meantime, head over to the Listen@Home kiosk and check out our updated events calendar. You’ll see that there is a regularly-occurring event scheduled for every night of every week. Whether it’s a game launching event for Street Fighter IV – or any of the other titles that launch in Home – or an official PlayStation Home forums party (like the one set to go down on Thursday night), there’s truly something for every gamer in-world. And if you want to throw your own event or attend one of the many awesome gatherings our die-hard community members regularly throw, just check out the Clubs and Events sub-forum on www.us.playstation.com.

Locust_Star here, signing in to give you a quick heads-up regarding a cool event that we will be running for the next week in our new 10-Screen Theater. Magician, mind reader, escapologist, hypnotist, illusionist and all-around crazy sonofagun Criss Angel has given us some exclusive clips from the next season of A&E’s hit show Criss Angel: Mindfreak, which we will be broadcasting starting today.

The best part is that every user that logs in to PlayStation Home to check out these clips will be given a limited-time virtual item for their personal space – a stylish Criss Angel Mindfreak Coffin Couch. This item will only be available to those of you who visit the 10-Screen Theater and watch the Criss Angel: Mindfreak video between now and the 12th. After this date, this item will never again be made available. You’ll also be automatically entered into a giveaway for 1 of 2 real – yes REAL – Criss Angel: Mindfreak Coffins and 1 of 3 Criss Angel: Burn DVD’s and Book sets (5 winners total). So what are you waiting for? The clock is a’ticking, my friends…tick tock tick tock!

We’re proud to announce another major core space update. The Movie Theater brings you ten times as much exciting content [including from the PS.Blog! -Jeff] with a brand-new 10-screen layout, a new lobby, and the ability to unlock rewards in select screening rooms. Be sure to check out the screening rooms often – you never know when one of them will be giving something away. Stay tuned for lots of exclusive new videos over the coming months, including the future possibility of full-length TV shows or movies, with new features debuting on a regular basis.

But that’s not all! The Burn Zombie Burn space brings its classic cartoony graveyard style to PlayStation Home with a crypt for lounging in while you watch Burn Zombie Burn videos, a zombie-infested maze mini-game where you’ll be challenged to find your way out before you get zombified, and as always, an exclusive reward. Don’t get lost in the graveyard!

Next, the first wave of MotorStorm content will be swerving into PlayStation Home with MotorStorm Pacific Rift Game Launching functionality topping the bill. If you’re new to Game Launching, click here for more info on how this great functionality works.

There will be more MotorStorm news coming your way very soon; in the meantime, check out the screenshots below for a tantalizing snippet of some of the great MotorStorm content coming to PlayStation Home over the coming weeks.

Next (and this is very exciting) as of tomorrow, we will be launching a new event in PlayStation Home – the Fat Princess “Quest for Cake.” Based upon the brilliant PSN title which launches today, all you have to do is click on the PlayStation Events Space chip on your World Map to join in this very special confectionary quest.

In the fully redecorated space you will find eight pieces of cake, locked away in cages. To unlock the cake and feed your Princess you need to search the space high and low for clues. If you do manage to unlock all eight pieces of cake, and feed the Princess, a special reward will be yours – the Fat Princess’ very own throne for your personal apartment. Here are a few screenshots of the space to whet your appetite…

Finally, be sure to cruise through the Mall to check out still more updates to our lovely new stores…sources say there will be some cool new items to pick up to show your friends, both free and for sale!

See you in Home!

~CydoniaX, PlayStation Home Community Manager