New PlayStation Home and PSN Information Comes out of Sony GamesCom Conference

With over 7 million people downloading Home since its release, it's no suprise that some of Sony's lead titles are coming to PlayStation Home.  There are also a few suprises in store for PSN users, starting very soon.

September 1, PlayStation Home is getting a new look.  There will be additional dance moves, a SingStar place in Home, and an Audi place in Home.  The SingStar place in home features an interactive dance floor.  There will also be a jukebox. 

In Europe, the BBC iPlayer and other channels are coming to the PlayStation Network (examples: RTVe, Antena 3, LaSexta).  The PlayStation Network is also getting pre-paid cards in Europe (in 20 and 50 Euro denominations), much like the pre-paid cards for Xbox Live and PSN here in the States.  PSN is also getting animated themes.  One example shown was SackBoy running on a globe.

The PlayStation video store is getting a European PAL equivalent in November.  Star Trek, Harry Potter, and 007 were all shown as playable on PSP and PS3.

November will also see the release of an eReader for the PlayStation Portable.  The software has an "autoflow" mode.  Marvel comics will be available with the eReader's release. Hundreds more comics will be shown / available soon.

Soon there will also be a special category of mini-games available on PSN.  These games will all be under 100 MB in size.  When the PSP Go is released, there will be 15 titles available, by the end of 2009, there will be 50 of these mini-games available.  Tetris included in this category, also included in this discussion was Fieldrunners, the popular iPhone game (from EA).  Official name of the category is "Minis on PSP"

Also noted was that the PlayStation 2 has already sold over 138 million units, and the PSP has sold 52.9 million units.  Without the price drop, the PS3 has already sold 23.7 million units, with 10 million of those in Europe.  There are over 27 million users of the PlayStation network, they've downloaded over 570 million items, and over $280 million in revenue has been earned as a result.  Over 7 million people have downloaded the software for PlayStation Home.

The PS3 Slim was also announced at GamesCom - it will be 33% smaller and 36% lighter, and will retail in America for $299.  The package includes an HDMI cable, making it one small step above the existing PlayStation 3 (which only ships with a composite cable), and it of course includes Blu Ray support and comes with a DualShock 3 in the box.  Incredibly, the hard drive will NOT be dumbed down; it will have a 120 GB hard drive included with the system.