By Pentadact

A very, very long time ago, a fairly high-ranking Future exec whose opinion I trust hinted – as we all lightly mocked Sony, the national sport for the past eighteen months – that the PS3 had Something Else that made it more of a contender than it might seem. I can believe Home might have been it. From what I’ve seen it’s firmly a There rather than a Second Life, in that you’re a consumer rather than a creator, but it still eclipses the rather under-developed concept of the Mii.

It almost makes Sony seem forward-thinking to discover that they’ve been going down the virtual world while everyone was wondering why they didn’t ape Microsoft’s matchmaking interface. It even lends a little credence to their rather unexciting claim that the PS3 is a computer rather than a console (“Could you make a console next, then? We already have computers that do everything.”) A consumerist social virtual world is something that’s probably best enjoyed from the sofa rather than the desk.

But why, then, on Earth, doesn’t the PS3 come with a keyboard? Accepting USB keyboards is a start, but people don’t have spare ones lying around, aren’t prepared to move their PC one, and aren’t going to buy one specially unless Sony pronounces it necessary. And without widespread keyboard usage, this isn’t a social virtual world, it’s a dystopian nightmare in which people can only communicate through the medium of emote-dance, stock phrases and a cacophony of clashing crackling nasal voices. You know how your voice sounds all wrong recorded? That’s because headset microphones have an inbuilt filter that post-processes the audio input to make you sound like a horrible prick. In those dark, chilling moments after I’ve newly reinstalled Battlefield 2 or Counter-Strike but before I’ve remembered to block all voice-comms, the first time someone actually uses it is like something from a Cronenberg film:

“Oh dear God, I think it’s trying to- it’s trying to talk. I’m going to be sick.”

Non-textual communication is appropriate for a much more exciting prospect also unveiled at GDC, this time from the ex-Lionhead guys who made Ragdoll Kung-Fu. In a restaurant bathroom earlier tonight I got a (non-textual) call from Tim in San Francisco, saying “Look up Little Big Planet. You’re going to love it. It’s like a cross between Spore, Ragdoll Kung-Fu and The Incredible Machine. Oh, and it’s only on PS3.” (That, by the way, is how to promote your system without sounding like a dick, Sony).

I do love it. I love it so much that, if the PS3 were a games console rather than a computer and priced as such, I would be seriously considering waiting a while and then starting to mull it over and straying remarkably close to musing about getting one before returning to my baseline state of definitely-not-getting-one. I would have gone with “Garry’s Mod with hugging”. Creativity and physics we’ve seen together before, but being able to latch onto things makes it wonderfully tactile, and turns the player into a physics prop to be toyed with like all the rest. It looks – and I can’t truthfully say this about any other console game – like a load of people being silly and having a great time together. This video made me laugh with a series of highly embarrassing noises that I haven’t heard myself make since I was six.

There’s a longer video here explaining the creative features, but it’s not set to the Go! Team’s Everyone’s A VIP and so is vastly- wait, there are sound-effects in this clip too. Holy God, does that mean they’ve actually got the Go! Team as the game’s official music? +58%! To its current 94% score. You heard me.

The most indelible criticism I’ve heard anyone make to Sony was simply “Come on, guys, I just want to play with my friends.” I don’t know how much better Home is going to be at making that a simple matter – I’m willing to bet that Microsoft’s old-skool solution is going to be quicker and simpler for some time to come – but there is at least evidence, now, that you’ll be having a completely ridiculous time when you manage it.

Of course, none of this really matters when the system costs, and will continue to cost for a minimum of two years, SIX-HUNDRED DOLLARS.