PlayStation Home is up and running. Gamers will have their own online, 3D, virtual cribs from now on – other than those in some of the sims-like video games out there. The official launch happened yesterday, and after a 1-year delay, it was looked upon with plenty of eagerness.

This virtual gaming community is basically a social network where you can create personal avatars and share your tales of gaming adventure with other avatars a.k.a. other gamers.

PlayStation Home is downloadable for free (if you have a PS3), and then all the user has to do to gain entrance is find its icon on the PlayStation Network column. The open beta launch didn’t go as smoothly as it could, but, according to PSX Extreme, Sony seems to handle the matter pretty well.

There are plenty of stores in PlayStation Home’s virtual world, and you’ll have to come up with real money to purchase the items for sale there.

Luckily, for now a least, these are quite cheap. For instance, the new Summer House is $4.99, and various decorations and look-polishing stuff have an average price of $1. More expensive and varied items are probably on their way.

If we have a look at the larger picture, it would seem that PlayStation Home is meant to take some of the heat off Sony’s back, because Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 are some very hot competitors.

It should also help Sony bear the brunt of the financial crisis better; they recently announced cutting 8000 jobs and closing factories as a result of said brunt.