Today, Sony announced the arrival of Xi in Home. Xi -- a gloriously vague name -- is an alternate reality game based inside the social service. To join in on the cryptic shenanigans, all you have to do is step through the looking glass the silly little "Xi" insignia in front of the apartments in Home’s Central Plaza. Once entered, you’ll be transported to a new space called The Hub.
If you’re at work, or just like clicking on things, I’ve included some pictures of the space in the gallery below. As you observe, it’s a fairly sterile area. But don’t let that fool you -- there’s actually something to do in the space.
The first objective of Xi is to figure out what fuels it. Picking up the three scraps of paper scattered around The Hub sheds some light on the odd new addition to Home. (You can get a sneak peek here if you’re really interested.)
I won’t spoil the rest of the adventure, but I wanted to comment on how nice it is to actually do something other than dance. This ARG stuff actually gives you initiative to talk to people and check out all the areas in Home. It's, if you’re into riddles and are tired of dancing to the new 50 Cent songs blasting through the jukebox.
According to Home’s community manager, CydoniaX, Xi will be “changing day by day, week by week, in real time.” So look forward to plenty of cryptic stuff moving in the weeks to come. And, hey, be careful: you might have a good time.
Contest:
2:40 PM on 03.23.2009
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Good one, Sony. That probably won't come back to bite you on the ass.
I'm a sucker for puzzles, but I'm also a sucker for NOT logging into Home.
WHICH SUCK WILL PREVAIL??!
Sounds better than pressing the triggers while on the Xbox Live main menu and watching the selections go really fast back and forth for amusement.
*end scene*
NO ONE WANTS IT
Were it not for home missing the basic building blocks (below) it would be an awesome replacement for the XMB.
1) TV's - sort this issue out Sony, sort it out now.
2) Stereo's - If we can listen to our music in Home we will come here more often.
3) Picture Frames - Just do it. I know there's "rights" and "content" issues but sort it out.
4) Incorporate PlayTV - let me watch real TV while in my appartment, don't even let others watch my TV, i just want to use HOME like the XMB.
5) Game Launching - what's a console GUI without Game launching??
6) Full screen bloody theatre screens. No-one likes a poncy theatre boarder.
add that shit, and even an "auto launch" option for home so i never need to use the XMB, not that I don't love the XMB but a HOME based GUI that let me use at least most of my PS3's features would be out of this world. Not to mention would take the piss out of that new errorbox GUI, what was it called, the E74's mask? RRoD disguise? Something like that.