I’ve always heard the saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” but it was just today that I realized how much Sony must want to flatter the #?!@ out of Nintendo. Kaz Harai, Sony figurehead, announced a new offering they’re working on called “Life with PlayStation.” The name itself is going to be the punchline to a million jokes we’re likely to see any minute now, but what just seemed so overbearingly comical was what Life with PlayStation really is.

What is it? Find out, after the jump!

Wait a minute… rather than describe Life with PlayStation on its own, let me make this a little easier on myself. Take Nintendo’s Weather channel, slowly stir in Nintendo’s News channel, knead it thoroughly on a floured surface, then cover with a damp towel and let it rise (to HD resolutions) for 30 minutes. Finally, toss it in the oven to bake for 45 minutes at 375°. When you’re done, you’ll basically have a slightly prettier, slightly more convenient (it’s one application versus two), slightly more full-featured (it’s got a web browser in there too, it would appear) version of what Nintendo has been offering for quite some time.

Okay, so I’ve made fun of it now… are there any redeeming qualities? Sure there are. If there’s one thing I know from the Earth music visualizer it’s that I can stare at a nicely lit and rendered HD representation of Earth for HOURS over the course of a month. I mean it’s Earth… it doesn’t change. I even LIVE there… but I still find myself ogling over it. If the LwP Earth is anywhere near as impressive (please, oh please use real-time weather representation and allow zooming in to the city level so I can stop watching my creepy-looking local weather man!)

The PS3 has a lot more going for it in terms of system storage too, so possibly we’ll see video of key stories pop up in the future. Details are admittedly thin at this point, as we really only have screenshots in Japanese at this point to go on. It appears LwP will use the PS3 browser as well which can definitely open possibilities beyond what the Wii’s news/weather channel can do.

Did I mention custom soundtracks? You haven’t experienced weather and news until you’ve played the Let’s Make A Soundtrack for the Weather and News Game. Hurricanes heading for Florida? Cue the Scorpions to Rock You Like A Hurricane! Tornados in the midwest? Play Dead or Alive’s (no pun intended) You Spin Me Round. Wild fires in California? It’s got to be the Bloodhound Gang and The Roof Is On Fire. Okay, I take it back… Life with PlayStation sounds pretty kick ass with that aspect alone. Now if Sony is able to license and push those sounds out to us, I’ll probably end up getting fired and divorced because I’ll do nothing but hang out 24/7 listening to the weather, waiting to hear Vanilla Ice signaling the weather update for Antarctica.

One last word on LwP. There’s been no mention of price so far. Nobody “owns” news or weather (which is why I’m only flicking them crap for their implementation, not the actual idea of weather and news updates on a console; that idea is pretty sound actually), so Sony, if you decide to try attaching any form of microtransactions to this stuff… well, let’s just say I’ll be expecting to hear a little Talking Heads when I look up Sony HQ via LwP… because someone’s going to be Burning Down The House!

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