Early Homeys: Red Bull, Diesel

Sony tried to drive home for christmas and released the long awaited PS3 Home last week (blogged here) and it will be interesting to see it develop. Unfortunately I don't have a Playstation 3, so I won't be able to keep you folks up to date on business in Home first hand, but already a number of articles are appearing on brands in Home.

Red Bull

First to boost out of the gates was Red Bull, who had a shortlived experience in Second Life, but probably did find it a waste of energy, or a mismatch with their objectives. To be honest, gutfeeling says they fit better at Home.

Red Bull was inspired by an energy drink from Thailand called Krating Daeng. Red Bull is the literal translation of Krating Daeng in Thai. (Krating = Bull, Dang = Red) The logo of redbull is even the same as logo of Krating Daeng. Dietrich Mateschitz, an Austrian entrepreneur developed the Red Bull Energy Drink brand. [Wikipedia].

Red Bull is more suited to Home than Second Life as it is a more logical step for gamers, and Red Bull brings its famous Air Race as a playable game to their Home room.

(Red Bull screenshot from Kotaku)

Massively Sponsored.

It was to be expected that Home would be subject to all sorts of sponsoring, but as Luke Plunkett rightly says at Kotaku:

We always knew Home was going to be heavy on advertising and corporate sponsorship. But this heavy this soon? It's a little unexpected.

Even the December 10 press release announcing Home to finally open it's door had its commercial break:

SCEE today also announced the first partnerships with some of the world’s most respected lifestyle brands for the Open Beta. Fashion leader Diesel, contemporary furniture designers Ligne Roset, energy drink Red Bull, film studio Paramount Pictures and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer are the first on board. They will offer resident’s virtual clothing for their avatar, virtual furniture for their PlayStation Home apartments, exclusive video content and a virtual flying challenge: the Red Bull Air Race.

I'll try to do some more blogposts on these shops. Speeding up things would of course be one offering me a sponsored PS3 to explore myself or find another guest blogger.

(Diesel screenshot from Kotaku)