Written by Jason Fanelli  on January 23, 2009

Special: Let's get ready to RUMMMMMMMM-BLLLLLLLLLE!

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The New Xbox Experience launched in November to many a happy Xbox 360 owner. The avatar creation system is a hit and the interface is much more accessible than the old blade system. However, Sony is not too far behind with their Home service, a Second Life-esque world that lets you interact and play games with others. Even though they're two completely different philosophical approaches to character personalization, how do these two services stack up to one another? I've spent some time with both, and now that gamers have had a chance to play with both services for several weeks, I'm prepared to say that they're close to being even. But one service has a bit of an edge at the moment.

CREATION SYSTEM
The Microsoft Avatars are very similar to Nintendo's Miis. When you first log on to the NXE, it sends you right to the creation menu, where you can set everything from skin color to clothing options to height and width (yes, width). The ability to buy additional clothes for your avatar is also appealing. Home's is much more limited in its creation selection, with only a handful of shirts, pants, and hairstyles to go around. You can win more clothes, or buy some from the mall like NXE. The ability to win more stuff to customize your Home character with is awesome, because not always having to buy new stuff is always a good thing.
WINNER: Home



AVATAR USE
After creating your NXE persona, he or she will appear in the My Xbox section of your interface next to your information, and that's about it. Unless you buy certain games, such as A Kingdom for Keflings, or go into a friend chat, you won't really see your avatar again. You'll see your friend's avatars in the Friends section of the interface, but again, that's about it. I don't like the fact that your NXE character doesn't get a lot of face time. When you bring up the Xbox Guide menu in the middle of a game, I want to see my avatar poke his head out and say hi. When I'm in a game like Gears 2 and I'm looking for someone to play with, I want to see the avatar standing next to the name. What's the point of making said avatar if I barely see him?

Home, however, is much different. Your avatar IS your character. Your avatar is the one who travels from the apartment to the main plaza, who talks to other players, who bowls in the bowling alley, etc. It's your creation that can start a disco dance party in the middle of the street if he wants to. Without your creation, you can't be a part of Home, plain and simply. Seeing a character that you designed to look like you walking around a virtual world is awesome. I liked being able to wave to another player and start a conversation. I liked going to over to the movie screen in the central square, selecting the full screen option, and watching the Far Cry 2 trailer that was playing. I liked going into the movie theater and watching the brief documentary on SOCOM: Confrontation. I especially liked going to the bowling alley and jumping on a lane with a total stranger. Home is an interactive wonderland with loads of things for you and your virtual character to do, even if the creation part is limited.
WINNER: Home

INTERFACE
The interface is where NXE really shines. Everything is perfectly organized and spread out into sections. The Marketplace is now two Marketplaces: Game and Video. My Xbox is where you'll find all the info pertaining to you, including achievement info and games played. The biggest improvement, for me, is the new friends menu, which shows which friends are on, their avatars, and if they're playing in a group, those group members and their avatars, even if you're not friends with them. You can see who's in a full party or who needs one more guy, which to me makes finding a game much easier to do.

The problem with Home is in its accessibility. Say you're in the Mall area, doing some shopping for your avatar's pad, and you want to go see it. In order to do so, you have to leave the mall and walk across the Central Square back to your apartment, then back to the mall to shop some more when you see it. This process can be time-consuming and downright tedious, not to mention unnecessary. I would hope that Sony would put in a Уwarp functionФ where you can travel from one area to another without having to physically walk there, because that will take a lot of the fun out of the Home experience.
WINNER: NXE

GAME MARKETPLACE
You wouldn't think this would be as much as a close victory as it is, but NXE takes this category. As far as demos go, Home allows you four games at the moment: Bowling, pool, and Echochrome and Ice Breaker through the arcade cabinets in the bowling alley. That's all. Of course, being able to demo other games in those arcade cabinets would be an intriguing idea, but that remains to be seen. You can access the actual Playstation Store through the Shopping Mall, but I could do that before Home launched, so it's not that big of a feature. The PS Store game selection is good, and you play with actual money instead of points, but the store still doesn't compare to the NXE Marketplace. Games like Castle Crashers, Uno, Soul Calibur, and Samurai Shodown II are all available exclusively on the NXE, with online capabilities to boot. The vast selection of games even makes up for the stupid 80-cents-to-the-dollar Marketplace Points conversion system. Both NXE and PS Store do virtually the same thing, but the selection on NXE gives it the edge.
WINNER: NXE

VIDEO MARKETPLACE
There is no doubt that being able to just walk up to a video screen and watch a movie or a trailer is a cool feature. Home does this and does it well; however, this type of interactivity is nothing compared to the beast that is Netflix. Being able to stream movies right to your 360 hard drive, watch them, delete them, and immediately get a new movie is easily one of the best decisions Microsoft has made concerning its 360. Granted, sitting in a virtual movie theater with a bunch of virtual people watching a movie is cool and all, but with the type of selection that Netflix has, I could have any movie I wanted right at my fingertips. Advantage Xbox.
WINNER: NXE

FINAL THOUGHTS
Both the NXE and Home have their ups and downs. Microsoft has a deeper creation system at the moment, but doesn't showcase the creations for long enough. Sony's initial creation choices are limited, but your avatar is the character you control. NXE is more easily accessible, while Home can be slow-paced and tedious. However, the selection found in the game marketplace, coupled with the ability to sign up for movie streams right to your consoles, gives the edge to the New Xbox Experience. You may not see your avatars for very long, but you have access to two of the largest media libraries available: the Xbox Live Marketplace (both Game and Video) and Netflix. Sony's virtual movie theater is cool, but its lack of choice in what to watch is as absolute buzzkill. As far as virtual experiences go, look no further than the Xbox 360.
WINNER: The New Xbox Experience