The creative director of Sony's Home project has said that they have made it the best-looking multiplayer world and the most user-friendly. He said he is aware of the comparisons people make between Second Life and Home, but looking at Second Life, he is amazed at how many people go on it. He said the Home virtual world doesn't "have anything in there that's appealing to that kind of geeky audience that you might find in Second Life."

And Venables, who's worked on the Home project since its first concept on the PlayStation 2, agreed that it's important for Sony's virtual world experience to keep a high "quality bar", but pointed out that the Second Life creators, Linden Lab, had a more difficult proposition in terms of PC compatibility.

"Essentially, with the Second Life example - and partly the disparity of the graphics, because you have to cater for the lowest-end PC whereas on the PlayStation 3 it's a level playing-field - with something so organic as Home, with features being added, it's difficult to set that benchmark of how many polygons to throw around, and how many to save for future things that we may or may not want to do," he said.

"I think the PS3 platform has given us an advantage in terms of keeping a polished look, and it not to look like Second Life. I don't want to dis Second Life, obviously they've been successful and they have to cater for people with old Pentium IIs and whatever, so I can understand why it looks the way it does.

"So it's not to criticise them, it's just that as a PlayStation 3 online space it was very important that there is a quality bar that we want to hit."