Camel's Nose In The PSN Tent

Free Realms... it's like an online cosplayer convention, I think.

Here's a news tidbit that I filed away, but haven't gotten a chance to comment on yet... Sony has announced the first free-to-play title for the PS3, Free Realms. This is a family-friendly MMO that's done well on the PC, and now it's bringing the freemium monetization model to the PS3. Of course, this would be much more cool if the Playstation Network (PSN) was actually operational right now, but it's still turned off due to a rather nasty intrusion by a hacker. Sony is having to scour their servers to make sure there's no sneaky little code hiding out ready to steal credit card numbers or hack player scores.

It will be interesting to see just how well MMO's can do on consoles, and how well the virtual goods will sell. I'd think the lack of a keyboard would affect the ability to make friends and communicate, but since everything seems to be moving to voice chat anyway perhaps it's not so much of a bother any more.

I do wonder when Xbox Live will take the leap and allow free-to-play, or MMO's for that matter. They risk being left behind when Apple TV and Google TV make the leap to apps in the family room, as you can bet there will be plenty of companies ready to offer free-to-play games on those platforms.