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!

The mystery behind Xi has finally been revealed. Today, for the first time, all visitors to PlayStation Home can discover the full truth about Xi, Jess and the alpha zones beneath our virtual world.

All the Xi spaces will stay live for a few weeks yet, so if you want to finish off any of the games and puzzles – or if you’ve never experienced Xi before – you still have a chance to play and explore.

When you’ve had your fill of mini-game goodness, you can go to the Xi Hub and face the story’s dramatic conclusion. Just make sure you’ve got everything you want out of the game, because once you’ve seen the ending, there’s no going back.

And if you already know how the story ends, no spoilers please! Some of us are still trying to collect those last few butterflies first…

Greetings, Homies. Fasten your seatbelts, because we have the most exciting news to hit PlayStation Home since Open Beta! We know you loyal Home fans have been asking for media sharing since the get-go, and we’re very happy to tell you that the first stage is here!

Photo sharing, the first feature to support user-generated content, is finally coming to PlayStation Home! Starting today, Thursday, June 4th, you’ll be able to purchase picture frames in the Mall, upload photos from your hard drive or select from a gallery of default pictures, and then display them in your personal apartments. So if you’ve got photos from your latest game tournament that you want to share, all you have to do is upload them, choose the angle and size options for display, and then invite your friends back to your Home pad for your viewing party. Awesome!

But that’s not all! As usual, we have more exciting content updates coming today, including the highly-anticipated launch of the brand-new Buzz! game space. Get ready to strain your brain and freak your mind with this fast-paced, interactive quiz game. You’ll have to work with your friends and fellow community members to answer the questions lickety-split (hint: some organized sprinting may be necessary). Join the Home Community Management team in the Buzz! Space throughout the day where we’ll be challenging you to a game or three. Be sure to visit the MyBuzz website to discover what it takes to get your own quizzes into the Buzz! game space for future challenges.

When you need a break from thinking, be sure to visit the Mall for some retail therapy. It will be packing brand-new Ghostbusters costumes, designer duds for dandified men and women, and still more Street Fighter IV costumes.

Last but not least…word on the street is that everyone’s favorite ARG, Xi, will be revealing new spaces, ornaments, and mini-games.. Keep on playing, because it’s not over til the last butterfly flutters.

The meetings were ‘recruitment interviews’ to join Veilcorp, a mysterious corporation whose motives have always been unclear.

But now their aims are becoming clearer. All of the candidates in both New York and Los Angeles were given a pen during their interview. Each pen contained a USB stick hiding passwords to a restricted area of the Veilcorp website. And it looks like Veilcorp has had plenty of reasons to keep their dirty business secret…
To find out more, switch on your PS3, download Home, and look for the Xi graffiti in the main square. The recap video in the Hub will help you catch up with the action.

Meanwhile, check out the video of some of the candidates in New York. (We’re not sure if these two guys were candidates as well or just big fans of Veilcorp.)
 

Veilcorp claims that ‘Xi’ – whatever it is – belongs to them, and anyone hunting for it is in violation of Veilcorp’s rights.

What’s more, they’re recruiting. Anyone in the US is invited to apply for an interview through the Veilcorp website. Are they for real? In this story, it’s hard to tell…

The eagerly-awaited second Alpha Zone has opened up today, and there’s plenty of fun stuff awaiting you. Can you escape the Fish Tanks of Good & Evil…?

There are a few numbered screens on the walls, promising more games and puzzles to come. The yin-yang symbol on the floor suggests there’s a “light’n’dark, good’n’evil” theme to this place. But is everything as black and white as it seems? We’re guessing not.

Given that this game has already included a giant jigsaw puzzle on billboards across Europe, a shiatsu massage game, flying cows, and a pair of classic text adventures, we’re not quite sure what to expect next.

If you want to find out for yourself, fire up PlayStation Home and head for the Xi logo tagged on the wall in Central Plaza.

In the game, players have been finding dozens of clues to piece together the story. So far, the puzzles have all been in PlayStation Home or online in a series of websites. But now, clues are also appearing on billboards around the world.

Thousands of players are now working together, across borders and languages, to share information and solve this latest puzzle.

To join in the fun and maybe help solve the mystery, visit XiJess.com.

Called Xi , the adventure takes place in a series of secret areas in Home – and beyond – changing day by day, week by week, in real time. Anyone with a PLAYSTATION 3 can join in the fun for free.

To discover the mystery of Xi, simply log on to PlayStation Home and look for the graffiti on the wall in the main square. Find that, and all will be revealed….