Activision has announced today that Guitar Hero fans will have a place to rock out and bob their heads in unison in Sony’s online service, PlayStation Home. The Guitar Hero room is called “Backstage with Guitar Hero”.

“Backstage with Guitar Hero” will grant VIP access to both a themed backstage lounge and massive concert venue where they can meet up, hang out, check out videos for upcoming titles on the franchise, and share their rock and roll secrets.

There is yet no word on the release date for the room.

“BACKSTAGE WITH GUITAR HERO®” TO DEBUT IN PLAYSTATION®HOME

SANTA MONICA, CA – March 25, 2009 – Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that Guitar Hero® fans will have another virtual destination to join together and rock with the launch of the franchise’s very own space in the PlayStation®Home, the 3D social gaming community that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences together online for the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system. “Backstage with Guitar Hero®” will give Guitar Hero rock stars around the world exclusive VIP access to both a themed backstage lounge and massive concert venue where they can meet up, hang out, check out videos for upcoming titles on the franchise, and share their rock and roll secrets. “Backstage with Guitar Hero” will continue to evolve over time adding new functionality.

So, has anyone downloaded PlayStation Home yet and found out just how awesomely boring “the future” is? Well, I haven’t, and I’m pretty sure I don’t need to. A friend, a diehard Sony supporter that declared Home would kill Xbox Live, invited me over to check out his sweet in-game bachelor pad. I’d honestly be pretty impressed if his real place actually looked the way it did in PlayStation Home, but it doesn’t.

My friend does not have a sweet bachelor pad in real life. What he does have, though, is shit to do — something Home is sorely lacking. He can buy nice furniture to make his in-game crib better than his real-life crib, and his kids can pretend like they have their own place instead of living at mommy and daddy’s place… but that’s pretty much the extent of Home’s good points.

After 20 minutes of walking around his place and having him show me all of the things I could do, I concluded that Home sucks. It’s essentially a glorified chat room but only for your friends that have PS3’s. Sorry, Sony, but I think a PS3’s hard drive space is better used for your 500MB updates and 2GB mandatory installs. After all, aren’t PS3’s supposed to be able to play videogames?

Seems I’m not alone in my feelings of Home. G4’s Attack of the Show hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn took a thrilling stroll through Home-land and were equally unimpressed. Olivia Munn also seems to have no respect for the PS3 controller, tossing it on the floor in palpable disgust.

Exciting, no?

In closing, I made fun of my friend for being such a diehard Sony fanboy before I left his place. Funny thing is, as much as he defends the PS3 and claims it to be the far superior system, he actually plays significantly more on his Xbox 360 and has twice as many games for it but refuses to accept that he actually likes his 360.

He claims he’s just “passing the time” as he waits for all of the awesome PS3 exclusives, at which point he’s going to sell his 360… or so he says. My response to him was “You waited so many years for this and looked how that turned out.”

Great job, Sony (and fuck you, Garett!).

[To be fair, Home is still in Beta, but it's been in Beta for like 20 years so I don't imagine any drastic changes anytime soon.]

The PS Blog has the news that PS3 owners have been waiting for since, well, they got their PS3- the Home open beta launches tomorrow, December 11. As an ‘open’ beta, this means that all PS3 owners can download and use PlayStation Home; the words ‘open beta’ are becoming more and more synonymous with ‘you can use it, but don’t complain if it sucks’ nowadays. In case you hadn’t heard about Home, it’s an open platform for social interaction, similar to Second Life, with customisable aspects. More after the jump.

In short, Home is a place to meet Internet friends, customise yourself and your house, and visit special places- for example, as reported by Gamezine, Far Cry 2, Uncharted, Warhawk, MotorStorm and SOCOM will all have special areas within Home, and more big names in the industry are on their way. Plus, non-gaming companies are getting involved as well, so expect to be admiring people dressed in Diesel fashion drinking Red Bull while watching a Paramount movie on a Bravia HDTV. It’s just like real life, kids! Still, it does sound like a nice service, and I’m looking forward to trying it out. See you there.

A member of the Official Sony PlayStation message board got tired of waiting for his invite to the Home Beta (originally scheduled to go out yesterday) and decided to take matters into his own hands by calling up the all knowing customer support team for some answers.

The first rep he spoke to (call recording here) stated that if he applied via email, per the company’s instructions, that he would be finding out soon, and then adding that “it should be arriving today.”

While this news may sound good for those who genuinely want to believe, he tried back again, this time getting a different rep (call recording here) who responded by saying that the company doesn’t tell them those things and that he should check the site for answers. Give that girl a Klondike bar.

Source: boardsus.playstation.com (via: feedonps3.com)

Playstation Home is getting more appealing by the second and the way in which Resistance: Fall of Man, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and Warhawk will utilize it is nothing short of awesome.

The Playstation Home portal for Resistance will function like some sort of museum, allowing players to use their avatars to explore some unforeseen areas from the game and experience bonus content such as back story. This is an absolutely ingenious way to further flesh out the game’s story while keeping the experience on the console.

The folks over at Naughty Dog will be allowing you to explore Uncharted’s world with your Home avatar without any fear of being shot, in addition to providing you with a supplementary Uncharted mini-game. It’s a 2D side-scroller that’s been described as “reminiscent of both Contra and Out of This World.”

Finally, the features that Warhawk will utilize with Home are by far the most exciting. The Home lobby for the game will act as a military war room in which players can get together and discuss battle plans, to the extent of even using a 3D map of the level and little army men avatars to lay out their tactics in 3D. This brings to my mind the scene in Star Wars Episode IV in which the Rebel Alliance discuss their strategy to bring down the Death Star. My heart just skipped a beat due to all this excitement.

According to Kotaku, Sony is pitching ideas like these to developers to get more out of their games. If these three titles are any indication, we have a lot to look forward to with Home.

Could Playstation Home be out within 24 days? A web countdown suggests as much, though its reliability is unknown. Make your mind up after the jump.

There have been signs that Home’s release is imminent, with a Warhawk patch adding game launching within Home, XMB accomplishments integrated into Devil May Cry 4, a significant update to the Home beta, and news that internally Home is well past v1.00 – the version that when made available will signify the launch of the service.

A website countdown has now been discovered, suggesting that Home will be released in less than 24 days. Although an announcement was expected at last weeks GDC ‘08, a March release is certainly not unexpected.

Combine the countdown with this insider report…

A game must be able to integrate into Home, a game must support “Accomplishments”. Right there, two important things, the PS3 system for achievements is called “Accomplishments”, and Home is coming out VERY VERY VERY Soon.

…and like a teenager on a McDonald’s diet, the imminent release of Playstation Home gains weight.

When do we get to go Home? Christmas is a time to be at Home with the family, so we can only hope that Sony gives us a present too. Wishful thinking maybe, but Christmas would be the perfect time. What better way to get away from the trials and tribulations of family bother, than to bury your attention into perfectly creating Father Christmas or Gary Glitter in Playstation Home and then making him dance like a numpty!

Well with that in mind, here’s a recent tour of Playstation Home, showing off some of the most in depth character customisation outside of Mass Effect.