Summary
Home is coming. And when it does, and when its relevant to US consumers, it will be exceptional. The US games market for the near term is built on big box games like Halo that are not just games, but entertainment phenomena. And for Sony, the key is to have Home ready to make a huge splash right about the time PS3 saturation starts to be relevant (sell 50-60 million units first) and the mid major publishers shift their franchises away from the traditional build, box, and re-build model because costs of production have soared.
Analysis
The way I see it, and I'm largely opinionated and wrong from time to time, but Home is irrelevant to US consumers. Not irrelevant in the potential, but irrelevant in its features, services, and content.
The US market is driven by entertainment franchises. The recent Halo 3 release is a marketing extravaganza. Microsoft landed no less than 25 licensing deals off of it - and like the movie business -- the model is becoming get one hot franchise license the crap out of it and hope to make enough money to cover losses of all the other content. I think this model will implode and Home will be primed for success.
But here is the future, and the future for Home. Mid level publishers in the next 2-5 years will abandon the 20 million+ production costs for a "series" model where you pay 15-20$ upfront (not 70$) and then have to buy a series of add on levels, expansion packs, etc... - not sold at retail (be wary Best Buy!).
Before I get too off track. Essentialy, the I think Home's success is limited in the US until the movie mania approach to game development is abandoned for a smarter model that extends the life of a single game build. I think that because as we become dependent on Sony and Microsoft (and Nintendo's) ability to distribute content the console will become more important. Think about it. Now critics claim that games, not features, are holding back PS3. Why? Costs too much to develop games for PS3. The business model has to change. Home is at the center of that shift. But for now - its irrelevant.
