PS Home erecting Santa's Grotto

By Robert Purchese Published 1 December, 2009

Stay elfy this festive season.

PlayStation Home will open a Winter Wonderland on 10th December; a fantasy land of snow and elves and Santa's Grotto.

But unfortunately not all is well there and Santa will need your help to complete preparations and make Christmas a triumph. Rewards are promised to those who help, and mini-game tasks are designed to be frolicking good fun.

There will be a winter market with special clothes and items for avatars to buy, including what looks like a fetching duffel coat, satchel, hat and glove combo - judging by the screenshot on the European PlayStation blog.

A photo elf will even chuck-in a free festive border should you be snapped by him.

'PS Home erecting Santa's Grotto' Screenshot elf

This man will greet your children with a smile.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • KayJay #1 2 years ago

    :-) Brilliant...

  • Retroid #2 2 years ago

    Actually sounds like one of the better additions.

  • NGCes26294BIV #3 2 years ago

    The elf looks terrifying.

  • makeamazing #4 2 years ago

    Nice idea, anything to make Christmas more Christmasy is good in my book :)

  • Pedrolot #5 2 years ago

    Blimey...
    Edited by 1 at 01/12/09 @ 11:26

  • Tomo #6 2 years ago

    People actually use PS Home?

  • superted1974 #7 2 years ago

    Nice idea, anything to make Christmas more Commercial is good in my book :(

  • LetsGo #8 2 years ago

    Is it like in my local shopping centre?

  • kangarootoo #9 2 years ago

    "The elf looks terrifying."

    All elfs look terrifying, surely (as opposed to Tolkien stylee elves, which just look undernurished).

  • Skurmedel #10 2 years ago

    I don't know if I would want my children to enter Santa's Grotto, in fact I think it's illegal over here.

  • Monkey_Puncher #11 2 years ago

    Help Santa and the elf empty their sacks for special prizes!

    Seriously though it's nice to see some sort of Christmas themed stuff on the consoles, though I'm guessing it'll be called anything but Christmas for fear of offending people who don't celebrate it.

  • kangarootoo #12 2 years ago

    "I think it's illegal over here."

    Do you live in the Arctic Circle? I heard they had a bit of trouble with Santa over that way.

  • JayArr #13 2 years ago

    Santa's Ghetto would be so much better.

  • Eldritch #14 2 years ago

    I'm amazed they actually found a way to make PS Home even more depressing. To blend in properly, Santa and that Elf should start out by second guessing everybody's sexual orientation and then stand in one place forever trying out all the moves and finally settling on "Robot". Cheers.

  • youhavenomail #15 2 years ago

    What happens if you ask Santa for a 360?

  • n00bzceam #16 2 years ago

    I have not been using my PS3 for ages and therefore not been using Home either. I can remember Home being a small town square that was just as depressing as the majority of the PS3 games. Could someone enlighten me:

    How do you enter the other areas, than the town square? And does it still take the best of a week for the console to load stuff?
    Edited by 1 at 01/12/09 @ 13:07

  • Eldritch #17 2 years ago

    "How do you enter the other areas, than the town square?"

    By downloading them? Oh, and then there's that map, of course.

    "And does it still take the best of a week for the console to load stuff?"

    No, it's nowhere near a week, no need to exaggerate here. I'd say it's more like 6 days now.

    I'll never quite forget the day when I tried out my new PS3 slim and, feeling adventurous, I downloaded all of PS Home and visited that EA Sports Golf thing. Imagine my amazement when it turned out the Golf simulator was "busy", because, apparently there was already ANOTHER bloke teeing off - just like in a REAL department store!

    Now, who needs Second Life, when experiences such as that are to be had at PS Home?

  • thebuzzard #18 2 years ago

    Has he had a CRB check?

  • Eldritch #19 2 years ago

    By the way, the first thing I saw when I left my "pad" on PS Home were two "guys", one of whom said "U R teh gay." Seriously.

  • reflux #20 2 years ago

    Wish they could spend more money and time on improving other parts of PSN instead... Like STREAMING THE GAMETRAILERS INSTEAD OF FORCING YOU TO DOWNLOAD THEM!

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #21 2 years ago

    @Monkey_Puncher:

    "it'll be called anything but Christmas for fear of offending people who don't celebrate it"

    Oh God. You're one of those.

  • spatss #22 2 years ago

    That elf gives me an erection. No, nevermind.

  • aldo_14 #23 2 years ago

    That elf gives me an erection. No, nevermind.

    Really?




    I just got a an orange and a lump of fucking coal*.







    *it's like regular coal, but squishier and with slight feeling of remorse the morning after.

  • Mkwone #24 2 years ago

    Be honest who else sniggered at 'erecting' in the article title. :D

  • Findus #25 2 years ago

    The elf looks like a reject from a Christmas Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Addon.

  • Ryze #26 2 years ago

    I want to be positive, but I went through the 5-10 mins of pain required to enter PS Home last week - and it was absolute worthless shite full of advert videos when I got there.

    Will someone tell me where the good bits are please?

  • reflux #27 2 years ago

    @knobgoblin: Really? How? Explain that to me please, I'm obviously too stupid for PSN then since I only see a "Download" button in mine.

  • Collymilad #28 2 years ago

    @Monkey_Puncher:

    "it'll be called anything but Christmas for fear of offending people who don't celebrate it"

    Oh God. You're one of those.

    Oh god, you're one of those Are you suggesting this doesn't happen? I've seen it happen at a school about 5 miles away from me, and yes, people who aren't christian do complain. ****em, I say.

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #29 2 years ago

    @Collymilad:

    "I'm not a racist, but...."

    Indeed, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. The Daily Mail brigade fan the flames of this rubbish but I'm yet to see any physical evidence of somebody complaining that Christmas offends them. It's a notion that gets assumed by some idiot somewhere and then travels on the breeze of Chinese whispers to infuriate every right wing simpleton it passes.

    I don't believe for a second that anyone has voiced that they're offended by Christmas. I do, however, believe that certain institutions (your school, no doubt being one of them) buy into this crap and are forced to act as such.

    The irony of all this is the number of people I've heard complaining about Diwali, Eid, et al. being celebrated in this country.

    "It's political correctness gone mad!". Bollocks.

  • SeesThroughAll #30 2 years ago

    Watching a video while it's being downloaded is streaming, AFAIK.

  • Collymilad #31 2 years ago

    "@Collymilad:

    "I'm not a racist, but...."

    Indeed, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. The Daily Mail brigade fan the flames of this rubbish but I'm yet to see any physical evidence of somebody complaining that Christmas offends them. It's a notion that gets assumed by some idiot somewhere and then travels on the breeze of Chinese whispers to infuriate every right wing simpleton it passes.

    I don't believe for a second that anyone has voiced that they're offended by Christmas. I do, however, believe that certain institutions (your school, no doubt being one of them) buy into this crap and are forced to act as such.

    The irony of all this is the number of people I've heard complaining about Diwali, Eid, et al. being celebrated in this country.

    "It's political correctness gone mad!". Bollocks. "

    Ah pull the racist card. Why exactly? Explain to me how I am racist since you think you can just make a BS statement with nothing to back it up. Go on.

    Also, I know for a fact that the school in question acted as they did because of the opinion of PARENTS of children that attended the school. So yea, you can ignore it and pretend everything is just fine, but it did happen and it doesn't really matter if some prat on the internet says otherwise.

    Just to add, don't make yourself look like a fool, religion does not equal race. It's nothing whatsoever to do with racism, and just goes to show how quickly you jumped onto that train of thought.

    Just because YOU haven't seen it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.
    Edited by 1 at 07/12/09 @ 15:45