Relax with the PS3 garden simulator, Shiki-tei

By Spencer . May 30, 2008 . 2:03am

Shiki-tei (literally: Four seasons garden) is like Viva Pinata, minus the talking pinata animals. The PlayStation Network “game” lets players plant trees, place stones and design a serene garden. The idea behind Shiki-tei is to take players to a place where they can relax, a far away place from the usual “save the world” drill in other games. Once everything is set you can watch cherry blossom leaves fall while listening to gentle music or your choice of death metal songs saved on your PS3’s hard drive. Shiki-tei supports custom soundtracks. You can also share your piece of virtual paradise by taking photos of the garden and sending them to others via the internet.

Shiki-tei is certainly one of Sony’s more experimental games which made it a good fit for the PlayStation Network. You can purchase it for 1,600 yen ($14) on June 26, but you might not get all of the content in the price. There is a button on the official page with pictures from additional content packs. Things like animals and statues of Toro, the Sony cat, may cost extra.

Yeah, I won’t be paying extra for the Toro statue or new motifs and probably not the game. While Shiki-tei is establishing new ground, the concept reminds me of the design your own apartment portion of PlayStation Home. Shiki-tei could easily be a PlayStation Home Japanese Garden Expansion pack.

Images courtesy of Sony.