Joe: The video's back, and yes I experienced that my first day in the last days of the 2nd closed beta.
Personally, I don't see how Home will ever fit into system without forcing it down everyone's throat. It has to become the default way of using the system, and honestly in it's current form its to cumbersome.
I see what Sony's trying to do. They're trying to bring Web 2.0 to gamers, but Home is missing some fundamental things. This includes user-created content. Currently the only thing that users can get is purchased content which is being used to probably fuel the Sony development fire to keep it going, hence the reason why the beta was opened to the public. This latter idea gathers more realism with the latest announcement from Sony about the content selling like "hotcakes".
To be optimistic (and play the marketer/CEO), I can see Home providing a platform where FUN things could happen. Picture a user playing Rock Hero Band Revolution 5 and being able to broadcast their band playing, which is made of up 8 different players from around the world. Or, even building on the idea that PS3 can already make in-game videos/pictures, think of being able to have a group of friends laugh at some of their antics in the latest online game they were playing, like how BattleTech (the ARCADE version) had a replay, with game play write-up and statistics.
Right now, it provides none of this, and with the PSN being as fast as it is, I don't seeing any of that coming to fruition in the future. Some of those ideas would require Sony to
a) foot the bill for them in certain games
b) provide it only in first-party games for the first year or so
c) force the publisher/developers to use the features before approval is given for going "gold"
All of which are not going to happen anytime soon with the current state of the PS3.
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