Since the advent of the internet people have been coming up with ways to connect with friends across the world, meet new people or even pretend to be someone else. Chatrooms and instant messengers preceeded the creation of virtual worlds like Second Life.

Sony has recently released its own virtual world called Home. With the huge upswing in gaming amongst previously non-gaming crowds the company is hoping that the virtual world will make them a lot of money through advertisements and downloadable content packs that give gamers new clothing and furniture options for their avatar and apartments.

Dan Hill, Home service manager for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has said that “… In time I would say that Home will definitely become a reason to purchase [PS3]. Today, we are at the beginning of a long journey – now is the time to start its evolution.” He went on to add that “no one is doing anything of this scale or ambition”.

My guess is that nobody’s doing anything of this scale or ambition because the casual crowd who like virtual worlds and Sims-like gaming aren’t interested in shelling out the money for a relatively expensive console that has just launched what is for now a bare bones social network.