While PlayStation Home, the virtual PlayStation community, is accessible throughout the three major regions, the content in these regions varies wildly. Home EU is a bit of mystery to me, as I don’t ever go there. Home US is decent in terms of amount of content, but if I were to pick a favorite, I’d have to go with Home JP for pure style and well used functionality.

Beyond just the “ad’s that get the job done” style that many things in Home US take, the Home JP development team has really embraced the idea of a virtual world, and it is reflected in the presentation. Ads in Home US are clearly ads, and while the same is true of ads in Home JP, ads there blend into the environments in such a way that they are visible but unobtrusive.

How is this accomplished? Besides just the ad designs themselves, the ad content in Home JP isn’t constantly pulling users out of the virtual world. Here’s an example: ads in Home US have been for the wireless chat pad and new games available at retail and through the PlayStation Store. None of those things can be purchases within Home, so there’s this conflict of imagery. The 3D environment sends the message of immersion, “Be here, be in this world” where as all of the advertisements say, “Go. Get out of this world and buy our stuff.”

That’s my theory, anyways. That’s why when I see a Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty poster, I say, “Ad,” but when I see a poster depicting an avatar in new clothes from the Threads store that looks like something you’d see in a real mall, I say, “Cool.”

These things might just be a matter of the different dev teams for the different regions having different skill sets and backgrounds. I’ve often thought that perhaps the Home US team simply doesn’t have the direction that Home JP has so of course they’re going to be different. Who knows?

What this does give us is the opportunity to look at the differences between the two regions. Check back soon to see what this big arm is about as we “Pretend to Be Japanese.”