Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds

Slatterz writes "Sony and Microsoft are poised to do battle in virtual worlds. The console kids both announced Second Life-style virtual environments at the Tokyo Game Show today. Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation. Players are represented by avatars which live a virtual life — engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Start with Blockout and MySims

[tepples]

However its big plus is that you can create anything you like from basic shapes like cubes. This seems highly unlikely to be possible from online console games.

I had a PS1 game where I could build stuff out of cubes, and it came out in December 1995. It was called Geom Cube, a port of Blockout [wikipedia.org]. Nintendo even cloned it on the Virtual Boy [wikipedia.org]. As for texturing those cubes, Doubutsu no Mori (ported to USA as Animal Crossing) explored it in 2001, and MySims refined it.

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Re:"Oh yay"

[Mordaximus]

Games Computers Play might have been just slightly older: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/GamesComputers.html [atarimagazines.com]

I was thinking the same thing. Misleading.

[Viewsonic]

From everything I've seen, Microsoft is allowing people to create 3D avatars just like Nintendos Mii. They will have games and applications where many of these players can mingle together online. This isn't exactly a traditional "Virtual World" like the PSN Home or Second Life.

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Re:I'm not a young hippster

[pizzach]

It sounds like Sony is creating the kind of community they want. With all of the hipsters around, all of the screenshots of the game in magazines look really rad.