PS3 Home a little boring, just a little.

I stepped into PlayStation Home the other day and I must say, it is just as boring now as it was during the Beta. I am happy to see that Sony is being able to monetize it somehow, but honestly... It needs to become something for the gamers not just another Second Life. I have seen what I can do with the current incarnation of the system and here are my overall thoughts.

The Stack System is quite interesting, but lacking. The way that you move between 'spaces' in Home is that there are a set of stacks. There is your main Home stack which includes your apartment, The Arcade, The Mall and the Central Plaza. Then there is also a stack for every other property. For instance right now you can go to the Farcry2 space and the Uncharted space. You zoom out and there are 3 stacks on a 'grid' and you can select which of them you would like to be joining. I think it is sad that you can't just walk around the central plaza and find a space (All along I had this dream that it would be like Disney World, you would just walk from the Indiana Jones set to the Muppet's Theatre, I guess that was just  me.) I understand why they made the decision but what when there's 20 - 30 spaces? They have to figure out a better way to organize things.Pricing needs to be re-evaluated. Everything you buy in Home you do with real money. Unlike Microsoft's Live service, where you buy credits (or as Shane Bettenhausen calls them 'Spacebucks') PSN is 100% grounded on real money. This is awesome because you know exactly how much you are paying for any game (or item in Home's case) and you don't have to figure out what the conversion is (I believe 800 points is $10.00 right now), and Sony can't just depreciate your credits (or increase their value) artificially. $1 == $1 on PSN. Which means those jeans you just bought at the Home Mall really cost $1, it wasn't a joke, and you did not buy a 'set' of things. You bought a different colored pattern on the legs of your avatar. You can also purchase new 'living' spaces. Although right now the only other living space that is available is a 'Summer Home' for $5. I'd really like for them to stop doing this, but they are being very successful and they won't. In reality I believe what I should be pointing out is that I would like them to start coming out with these items as packs and for them to revise how much each item costs. $1 per item is preposterous. Which brings me to...Make the sponsors more involved. If i got to a Diesel store in my Local Mall, I should get a coupon for that same pair of jeans on the PS3. Cross-world promotion like that would only increase the visibility of the PlayStation 3 to the mom and dads that shop in malls and are not buying PS3s right now yet all looked for Wiis. Also there should be a way that you can win the items (or at least some) by doing PSN/Home related activities.

With all this said. I have a final thought. In order for PlayStation Home to succeed. It MUST be a game. There, I said it. If PlayStation Home is not a game the confusion of what is the 'PlayStation 3' will continue. I should be able to decide, "I'm going to play Home today". It should be somewhere that I can win points, gain levels, do quests or tasks. It should be a free, sponsored, Everquest. I really would not mind going through the Coca-Cola valley (which obviously has a Coca-Cola waterfall + river) and finding 4 hidden bottle caps and returning back to the wise Polar Bear for a cool Coca-Cola jukebox in my apartment. I know this is possible too! Since Red Bull's area will have a Red Bull Air-race mini game, where you can fly a prop plane. It is yet to be said how you will fly the plane however, right now if you go to The Arcade you can play bowling with other people but because the bowling lanes are not instanced you have to wait till somebody ends a game before joining it which is very dumb and does not solve any problems. Those are my thoughts on Home. I will report back when I read that Red Bull's area has been added, but honestly there's just nothing to do there since all the imaginary arcade machines and bowling lanes are always taken.