Looking to go virtual bowling with your South African friends in PlayStation Home? Think again! According to a Sony representative at E3, Home will be region locked. While you can visit anyone's private apartment, all public pavilions are restricted by your geographical area.

New images are circulating around the 'net about Microsoft's supposed answer to PlayStation Home. Dubbed My GamerPad, the two images (which are said to have originated from the very dubious 4chan forums) show a crayola-esque logo and an Avatar waving to nobody in a pavilion.

While we're pretty confident with the information about Avatars, My GamerPad looks like bad Photoshopping from a questionable source. We've put in a request to Microsoft for a statement. Update: Official statement: "Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation."

[Via X3F]

Any time one video game company attempts to capitalize on another company's good idea, there's always a bit of backlash from the fans of the company copied. We can only imagine the kind of retribution Microsoft will soon face from fans of the Wii's Miis and the PS3's Home -- if our sources are accurate, their upcoming "Avatar" service bears a striking resemblance to Sony and Nintendo's pre-existing lookalike creators.

"Avatars", mentioned in an independent survey for Microsoft (as taken by an X3F tipster), will supposedly be used in place of gamer pictures, and will give Xbox Live subscribers an animated, customizable online persona. The meager amount of information provided for the service claims it will be available "this holiday for all Xbox Live connected members", and "this Spring for all new console owners."

This information lines up nicely with details recently relayed to Joystiq by a trusted source, who tells us that a robust "avatar" (source's term) creation service which blends the customization options of Home with the in-game functionality of Miis would comprise a substantial chunk of the 360's fall update. With the breath of E3 hot upon our nape, we're sure to hear something more concrete about this service in the coming month.

Sony has again trumpeted intention to get its virtual world Home out the door this year, though precisely what state it will be in when players are eventually allowed to log on remains another issue entirely. Speaking to Wired, PSN senior director Susan Panico referred to Home's initial roll out as "similar to Gmail," calling the online initiative's presumably fall release an "open, working beta."

These comments have not exactly filled our heart containers with confidence. Google officially launched its email service in 2004, and now, some four years later, it's still in beta.

There are a number of negative traits associated with video game press events and conventions, the most obvious of which being the time and expense required to haul one's widely dispersed blogging crew to the west coast (or in some cases, overseas). However, not many know about a phenomenon known widely in our circle as "Blogger Stench", a condition brought on by packing a convention hall with tired, sweaty, uncomfortably close gaming writers. Luckily, Ubisoft is taking measures to avoid this putrid odor -- simply by bringing one of their events into an odorless space.

Okay, they're still holding their Ubidays press event in Paris today -- but for the next five days, the PlayStation Home's Media and Events space will be dedicated to previewing new Ubisoft titles, such as Prince of Persia, Tom Clancy's HAWX, and Soul Calibur IV. Those blessed with a closed beta account can check out these new titles from the comfort of their own homes -- those who attended the brick-and-mortar Ubidays event will likely spend the next five days replacing their overseas wardrobe and attempting to remove their outermost layer of skin with a Brillo pad.

Though things have certainly quieted down on the Home front, work on Sony's (overly?) ambitious project continues. Most recently, the service's beta testers were invited into a new location – the "Media & Events Space." As a test run, Sony recreated their PlayStation Day event from earlier this month, complete with photo galleries and a jumbo screen broadcasting speeches from the event (seen above: Big Brother, aka SCEE's David Reeves). Going forward, both Sony and third-party developers can use the "virtual arena" to host "everything from new game unveilings to sports events to fashion shows." Fashion shows? For the PS3 gaming crowd? We smell killer app.

[Via PS3F]

While confirming Home will "definitely be coming out in Autumn," SCEE president David Reeves said that "maybe we were too ambitious with the non-gaming applications within Home, getting sponsors and stuff like that." In an interview with CVG, Reeves continued to say, "In that sense we were deserting gamers. So, we're concentrating on the gaming by launching games in Home."

The closed beta for Home is still ongoing. Earlier today, EA Sports president (and former Xbox executive) Peter Moore said he was interested in the service but "disappointed" by its delays. Home producer Daniel Hill told our friends at PS3 Fanboy that game spaces will be shown later this month.

Peter Moore tells Eurogamer he wishes Sony's Home service would just ship already. The former Xbox exec turned EA Sports president says he's interested in working with Home, but he's "disappointed" that it keeps getting pushed back.

Moore expresses that he really wants Home to become the portal to the PlayStation Network and something that EA Sports could utilize, but that nothing's going to happen until it's done. Moore's got plenty on his plate currently as he tries to reinvigorate the EA Sports division and launches a new sub-brand.

Sony's promise of a true open-world experience with Home has been a continual dot on the horizon for PlayStation 3 owners since it was first announced during former Sony-exec Phil Harrison's GDC keynote last year. This continues to be the case this evening, as Sony just sent word that it plans to extend the service's closed beta phase through the summer season, pushing the eventual open beta launch until sometime in the fall.

According to Sony, the move will allow the company to invite more PS3 users into the closed beta, perhaps to iron out some of the social MMO's failings we heard so much about late last year. Says SCEI president and group CEO Kaz Hirai, the delay will let Sony "refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today," which is business speak for telling us that we'll have to wait a few more months before we can know the joy of throwing virtual televisions down equally virtual stairs.

Sony is expecting a big year for PlayStation 3 -- it might even turn a profit in the next fiscal year, according to SCEI President and CEO Kaz Hirai. The folks at PS3 Fanboy think it's got a fighting chance, and here are ten reasons we expect a better year for the console.

Worried that game integration with Playstation Home will just be trophies, trailers and t-shirts? Well, so were we, actually. Luckily, Kotaku's learned some interesting details about the Home integration of Warhawk, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and Resistance: Fall of Man. Turns out its way cooler than we thought.

Warhawk will reportedly allow up to eight players to meet in a "war room" prior to a match, mapping out strategies on "sand table" replicas of each level. Once they're ready to go, players can jump right into an online Warhawk match from the Home interface. A nice touch, indeed.

Resistance and Uncharted, meanwhile, will give Home users access to full unpopulated levels from the games, allowing players to casually walk through battlefields with their Home avatars. In addition to this killer feature, Resistance will allow players to explore unseen portions of the game, and locate radio transmissions that further explain the storyline. Uncharted will feature a Contra-style 2D shooter that launches from Home. Consider us floored. We can't wait to see these features in action.

Read - How Resistance makes Home really, really cool [Kotaku]
Read - How Uncharted makes Home really, really cool [Kotaku]
Read - How Warhawk makes Home really, really cool [Kotaku]

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

As Sony über-executive Phil Harrison prepares to leave the company this Friday after 15 years, GameDaily wondered what this would mean for PlayStation's Home. Harrison is credited as a leading proponent of the Home experience going back to its beginnings on the PS2. An SCEA spokesperson said that it's "business as usual for Home."

At GDC '08 some new screens and tools were shown for Home, but there is still no announcement about release. The last major progress report from late '07 showed the program is coming along, but still faces some challenges.

James Cox, Warren Keyes, and Liam Wickham from Sony Computer Entertainment are currently hard at work on Sony's upcoming online initiative, Home. At GDC, they spoke to interested developers about creating content for the online service, and revealed a few new images of the service in action.

The Home Development Toolkit (HDK) is currently available for all developers, and includes the things necessary for 3D asset creation, object creation, and creation of arcade and mini-games. Support for 3D trophies is also available, although its currently as an "evaluation." Samples are included in the HDK, and documentation is offered in English, Japanese and Korean.

Our BFFs over at PS3 Fanboy have noticed something interesting about the "Accomplishments" received while playing the PS3 version of Devil May Cry 4. Though it's not the first game to copy and paste the in-game achievements from the 360 version, DMC4 is the first title to recognize the accomplishments with a PS3 system screen, rather than an in-game notice.

This could possibly mean nothing, but it's equally possible that Devil May Cry 4 may be one of the first games to send accomplishment information to the PS3 system, for integration with services like the upcoming Playstation Home. We've already seen that Home will feature trophies collected from various accomplishments in games. Perhaps this could be the key to that feature.

As drab as the accomplishments notice is, it'll be interesting to see what it portends, if anything.