[rounin]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

I haven't read much of the thread (and thus not sure if it's been menitoned) but Second Life anyone?

[edit] Mentioned in the first post. I don't want to sound overly-critical, but it seems like Sony's just pulling another "let's copy something else and change it a bit". Can they not come up with anything truly original?

You should read the thread. At the very least least you should know better by now that you won't be the first to post something like that in a one and a half day 'old' thread

[DeathKnight]

Yeah, I know. I'm just venting.

[LogisticX]

What exactly are they supposed to create? Virtual reality? I mean, it's also been done before.
What about EyeToy?

I'm also one of the types who recognizes this to be a pretty big deal for some people, just not for me, but I give Sony props for busting out something like this regardless since I was having my doubts aside from VF5. In any case, Little Big World looks phenomenal, that's got my interest piqued, but the Home service right now doesn't look like something I'd really use.

Regardless, its always the same people who praise/criticize Sony or any given company. Can't we at least try to be objective here?

[rounin]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

Yeah, I know. I'm just venting.

Isn't that what Rage3D is for?

[dantruon]

I haven't read much of the thread (and thus not sure if it's been menitoned) but Second Life anyone?

[edit] Mentioned in the first post. I don't want to sound overly-critical, but it seems like Sony's just pulling another "let's copy something else and change it a bit". Can they not come up with anything truly original?

i dont about you but making the first 3d console is very creative and original and i wonder who then copy this idea to make another 3d console.

[wco81]

LBP looks interesting but how many different kinds of objects can you use? If they let users share levels created online freely, game could be popular for awhile.

Actually, instead of having people go into your Home and just passively look around at how you've customized and what trophies you have, they should let you create things like a LBP level, maybe mazes or some kind of obstacle course.

Something they would interact with in the environment rather than just look around.

Mini games, would be good. Maybe besides parlor games like pool, they'd have a basketball hoop over the garage door so you can play HORSE against your guests. Or touch football on the street. These games can't get too elaborate because they'd be too costly to develop.

In addition to apartments, they could have clubs, where people who belong to a clan would have some kind of exclusive membership. Then maybe things like bowling leagues or Fight Clubs.

These mini games have the potential to really detract from retail games. Maybe they could require payments to get into some clubs. One time, not subscriptions.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

I haven't read much of the thread (and thus not sure if it's been menitoned) but Second Life anyone?

[edit] Mentioned in the first post. I don't want to sound overly-critical, but it seems like Sony's just pulling another "let's copy something else and change it a bit". Can they not come up with anything truly original?

Originally Posted by LogisticX

What exactly are they supposed to create? Virtual reality? I mean, it's also been done before.

Yes, virtual reality world has been done before. So has FPS, RPG, platformers, ... , I don't see a problem here as long as there are improvements, new twists, and breakthroughs (not just technical advancement).

To be clear, most of these generic 3D environments -- including SecondLife -- have usability problems, performance issues and business model holes; but few know what the solutions are. PS Home represents another major effort. Should Sony stay on this path long enough, we may see new solutions.

I am personally curious to see what Sony, their partners and the players can come up with. The issue has never been whether someone likes/dislikes it. We already know it's not for everyone.

What about EyeToy?

To be released in April, I think.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by wco81

Actually, instead of having people go into your Home and just passively look around at how you've customized and what trophies you have, they should let you create things like a LBP level, maybe mazes or some kind of obstacle course.

Something they would interact with in the environment rather than just look around.

Mini games, would be good. Maybe besides parlor games like pool, they'd have a basketball hoop over the garage door so you can play HORSE against your guests. Or touch football on the street. These games can't get too elaborate because they'd be too costly to develop.

In addition to apartments, they could have clubs, where people who belong to a clan would have some kind of exclusive membership. Then maybe things like bowling leagues or Fight Clubs.

These mini games have the potential to really detract from retail games. Maybe they could require payments to get into some clubs. One time, not subscriptions.

If the mini-games are published using the current business framework, it should not be a problem. It just needs a tighter integration with PS Home.

I think Phil spoke about clan clubhouse.

In China, they even have virtual weddings where guys and gals will live together in virtual apartments as married couples online. Sony probably doesn't want to go there.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by RobertR1

The cool thing about this, that it's free. Outside of that, for me personally, someone who doesn't even have a myspace login or any interest in MMO/Sims type games, I won't be using it. Will I check it out? Sure.

And i have a feeling like people just like you are gonna end up getting more than you expected, when you check it out you might as well set up your apartment, maybe hang a picture or 2, hey why not use some personal pics instead of the default. Hmmm maybe i should checkout the games? You may not be the one that buys the penthouse and walks around in the clothes you unlocked in GTA4. But with the content that Sony has to and will provide in Home i´m pretty sure it will be interesting to visit.

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

I haven't read much of the thread (and thus not sure if it's been menitoned) but Second Life anyone?

[edit] Mentioned in the first post. I don't want to sound overly-critical, but it seems like Sony's just pulling another "let's copy something else and change it a bit". Can they not come up with anything truly original?

I think your "isn´t original" comment, requires a bit more argumentation, i have never seen anything like it before.

[RobertR1]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

And i have a feeling like people just like you are gonna end up getting more than you expected, when you check it out you might as well set up your apartment, maybe hang a picture or 2, hey why not use some personal pics instead of the default. Hmmm maybe i should checkout the games? You may not be the one that buys the penthouse and walks around in the clothes you unlocked in GTA4. But with the content that Sony has to and will provide in Home i´m pretty sure it will be interesting to visit.

You have my word. I won't be doing anything of such. I'll goto it if I need to, for demos and such. Will I check it out? sure, it's free but I have a pretty good idea of what does and doesn't appeal to me.

And I'm sure the you will plenty busy putting up your e-apartment decorations than to be missing me

[crystalcube]

After looking at "Home" I was wondering could Afrika be something like that ? A collaborative , free roaming , ever expanding world in wild ?
Or maybe you can hunt animals in Afrika and then have trophies in your "Home" ...
I know everyone noticed Afrika when it was shown but since we have almost had no info about it. Looking at Home , it opens up lot of possibilities.

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by RobertR1

You have my word. I won't be doing anything of such. I'll goto it if I need to, for demos and such. Will I check it out? sure, it's free but I have a pretty good idea of what does and doesn't appeal to me.

And I'm sure the you will plenty busy putting up your e-apartment decorations than to be missing me

Of course you will play around a bit And you shall be very welcome in my penthouse, i would advice you to be carefull about visiting other be3d fellows, especially London Boy .. check his myspace first ..

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Zassk

I'm very happy for you if you want clan rooms in a 3d environment. But I don't see this as a system-seller feature.

It's not about system selling features! Most 'system selling' games appeal to at most 20% of the console base. A system is bought for it's entire range of services and features. What Sony understand very well is one set of features doesn't appeal to everyone, so they're throwing in all sorts of stuff. That way the entire system appeals in different ways to different people. Think of it more like a package holiday than an arcade hall.

Mr. Blogs wants a holiday with lots of exciting activities to do
Mrs. Blogs wants a holiday with shopping and meeting new people and getting pampered
Miss. Blogs wants music and pop-culture and hanging out at the Mall
Young Master Blogs is happy to have a sandpit and adventure playground

If your holiday only caters to one or two of those people, and your rival's holiday (all other things being equal) offers them all something they want, in a well balanced household that respects everyone's interests and doesn't just do what the mum/dad wants(!), the rival's holiday is more likely to get custom.

None of those options is a 'Holiday Seller'. The holiday isn't bought for just the activities, or just the meeting people. It's bought because it enables all the different personalities in the household to get something they want from the holiday, so they'll all enjoy it. If you create the ultimate adventure holiday, 2 months trekking across the Andes with loads of off-roading, kayaking, paragliding, etc., you'll please the Dad but everyone else in the family will whinge and moan. And that's where the hardcore gamers are looking at this from a 'what does this service get me for my $600' POV. 'All I want is adventuring, so why should this holiday company be throwing in 2 days shopping and pampering every week??' They put in the shopping and pampering because some people want it! If it was just an adventure experience, you'd alientate 80% of the world's holidayers. If you want to attract everyone, you need to offer something for everyone. You need to provide services and features that perhaps only 10% of your user-base care for, but which is super-amazing-fantabulicious for the 10% who use it. Just trying to appeal to the largest common denominator is going to exclude a far larger percentage of potential buyers.

Or another analogy, iuf you plant a garden to attract butterflies. You can't just deck it out with one type of flower. You need to use different plants to attract different species. If you plant just Buddleia, you'll appeal to the largest amount with just one plant, but that's a small percentage of the total number of botterflies out there. Most don't care for Buddleia. If want to attract Western Tailed Blues, you need to plant peas even though no other butterflies are interested. But the only way you'll have all the butterflies in your garden is if you provide something for each of them.

[baten]

I think the biggest difference between Home and XBLive is not actually in the front/end 3D space that Sony has presented, but in the fact that Home seems to be something like an open-source thing, where everybody can come with ideeas and contribute (Phil was actually asking people to do so, and people on this board have already started to do so) - whereas Live seem to be a striclty closed platform where you get the work result of a handfull of people.

[one]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

Impossible, my smile cant get any wider....

Oh sorry something got wrong in my line

BTW, for those who are saying some games had virtual lobbies already, that's one of the uses for Home too, game companies don't have to create a new online lobby from the ground up. One of the aspects of Home is like Unreal Engine 3, everything needed is packaged in there ready to be used, communication/commerce-wise. Game 3.0 is a standard format and protocol, but embedded in the PS3 OS. It'll be interesting to see how the Home engine is customizable for game companies.

[archangelmorph]

Originally Posted by one

Oh sorry something got wrong in my line

BTW, for those who are saying some games had virtual lobbies already, that's one of the uses for Home too, game companies don't have to create a new online lobby from the ground up. One of the aspects of Home is like Unreal Engine 3, everything needed is packaged in there ready to be used, communication/commerce-wise. Game 3.0 is a standard format and protocol, but embedded in the PS3 OS. It'll be interesting to see how the Home engine is customizable for game companies.

I agree with that sentiment..

There's just so much scope for developers to implement content into their products (complete game X to unlock new X-related furniture/items etc.. for Home..) and even use it as a platform to market games either released or in development and sell game related content specifically designed for Home..

Heck developers could even go so far as to develop Home-based full-scale production games depending on how flexible the SDKs, API and Home framework is..

Full of potential I reckon..

I'm quite keen however to see publishers views/responses to the platform..

[Titanio]

A little note on content moderation. Basically, all public spaces will be moderated by Sony. Private spaces will be unmoderated.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6165180.html

Also, since I don't think it's been mentioned yet, there'll be beta accessible to the public in April, which you'll be able to register your interest for here:

http://www.homebetatrial.com/

They're calling it 'exclusive' though, so spaces will probably be limited. Hopefully it's reasonably large scale, I'd love to try this out ASAP, bugs and all.

[woundingchaney]

There is some other areas of PSN that I would have liked to see been dealt with more so than this "Home" concept. None the less, this concept has tremendous potential. Essentially you have the free roam habitat that has elluded many online structures for years. The success primarily depends on Sony's ability to fulfill and broaden the concept (which I believe them capable of doing particularly when one figures in the potential purchase downloads that can be associated with this feature).

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Titanio

A little note on content moderation. Basically, all public spaces will be moderated by Sony. Private spaces will be unmoderated.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6165180.html

"We've been working on Home for about two-and-a-half years," he said. "So we're absolutely aware of other avatar-based (environments), but we're taking a different approach."

I was wondering about that. With the public beta coming up next month already and release targetted for the Fall, this thing has to have been coming for quite some time. From Phil's words, it seems they started on it half a year before E3 2005. So must have gone out of their way to keep this a secret - and of course it's understandable why.

I'm surprised by all the comments on expecting more on the FirmWare enhancements like DVD scaling. What does that have to do with a Developer's Conference? That kind of stuff will be announced through the regular channels, I'm sure.

[Titanio]

The developer/publisher spaces idea has a tonne of potential when you think about it. I didn't really think to much of it initially, but thinking about it, it could be quite powerful.

It was being discussed on GAF, but it would be very neat if a developer can host online tournaments in their games from a themed dedicated space, with displays around you potentially streaming video from the games people were playing, or perhaps if it was possible, live video. Imagine in a tournament, people launching into, say, races from this dedicated space, watching them race live on a big screen, and then having them return back to the space afterwards to congratulations (or comiserations) from the rest of the people participating there.

Another thing I was thinking about..consider if the ESA (organisers of E3) created a themed E3 space where people could gather and, perhaps, watch live streams of conferences or the like. These kinds of events are very 'social' in a kind of weird way already for people online..people go on to messageboards and post furiously during them. So to be able to share that experience within a closed console community would be very cool. Ditto, media outlets could create spaces to pipe their coverage too. Harrison mentioned during the demo that partners can put html on displays, so if that can be HTML hosted elsewhere, it could be pretty easy for a 1up or IGN to integrate their existing set ups with that. So, for example, you could go and keep tabs of a Eurogamer live blog of an event on a big screen in their space. Now, you might wonder why do this if you can just go online on your PC and watch the live-blog, but again, I think people are already inclined toward sharing those events, and it would be cool to be able to do that in a console community. Something like home could facilitate that perfectly.

Of course, these are all "coulds and woulds" right now, mere possibilities. But I guess just the more I think about it, the more potential I see there.

[baten]

I will love to get into the B3D HOME space and meet the avatars of all the people on this boards...

[-tkf-]

Originally Posted by Arwin

"We've been working on Home for about two-and-a-half years," he said. "So we're absolutely aware of other avatar-based (environments), but we're taking a different approach."

I was wondering about that. With the public beta coming up next month already and release targetted for the Fall, this thing has to have been coming for quite some time. From Phil's words, it seems they started on it half a year before E3 2005. So must have gone out of their way to keep this a secret - and of course it's understandable why.

I think he mentions it started on the PS2?

Must have been a really scaled down rough version

[Gradthrawn]

Originally Posted by Titanio

Another thing I was thinking about..consider if the ESA (organisers of E3) created a themed E3 space where people could gather and, perhaps, watch live streams of conferences or the like.

Could you imagine the type of demand that event would put on the servers?

Originally Posted by Titanio

Eurogamer live blog of an event on a big screen in their space. Now, you might wonder why do this if you can just go online on your PC and watch the live-blog, but again, I think people are already inclined toward sharing those events, and it would be cool to be able to do that in a console community. Something like home could facilitate that perfectly.

Exclusive, "Home only," content could push that further. Instead of a watching Eurogamer's live blog, and waiting for the video of the conference, have a live stream at the Home Theater along with exclusive video interviews. Followed by a moderated live Q&A session with Phil in Home, as his avatar. Something like that, I think, could really drive the community.

[DJ12]

Originally Posted by Gradthrawn

Could you imagine the type of demand that event would put on the servers?

Not as much as you'd think, seeing as P2P seems to be integrated into home the load would be shared.

I don't think gamespots server(s) have ever melted down streaming the e3 conferences live.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by -tkf-

I think he mentions it started on the PS2?

Must have been a really scaled down rough version

If Yamauchi Kazuno had anything to do with it (which he's likely to, isn't he, considering his SCE position?), then I can imagine this as how he wanted to start the lobby, invite people to your Gran Turismo garage, chat, and start a race from there. I could definitely see that work in Playstation Home. Come to think of it, that overview of trophies probably were 95% GT5 ... lol.

[Gradthrawn]

Originally Posted by DJ12

Not as much as you'd think, seeing as P2P seems to be integrated into home the load would be shared.

I don't think gamespots server(s) have ever melted down streaming the e3 conferences live.

Ah, yes, you have a point. The large spike in users Home would see is no different than something Gamespot or IGN sees during the same time. However, I don't think P2P would play a part in an event like this. The content is coming from a server, not from someone's PS3. In addition, Home servers are not just serving up text and video, there's a lot of additional functionality that they're providing (and/or facilitating).


Not sure if this has been posted yet, but here's some information from a Q&A with Phil that answers some of the questions people have been asking:

PSN Userbase

Currently, 500,000 PS3 owners in North American have registered for the PlayStation Network, about 50% of the current U.S. installed base. After Home launches this fall, Harrison believes the number of registered online users will increase significantly. Though he admits "it's not going to be for everybody," Harrison can't see any reason why 100% of PS3 owners won't mess around with Home in some capacity.

Second Homelife?

Since the big reveal, fans and members of the media have repeatedly compared Home to the PC social experiment Second Life. Harrison called such comparisons "way over-simplifying both" Home and Second Life. While the two do have characters walking around a 3D world, Harrison believes the similarities end there. Second Life is almost exclusively driven by user-created content, while Home is an entertainment-focused environment in which almost everything is provided by Sony or third party supporters.

For the Parents

Home adheres to Sony's parental controls. There are several blockers that can be switched on to keep people safe from abusive gamers. In fact, you can mute anyone in Home or choose not to see their character at all. And since there is not physical interaction between characters (sorry pervs), there's no reason anyone should be able to bug you for longer than it takes to hit a button on the Sixaxis controller.

What about lobby size?!

Beyond abuse, a common concern has been the server size of Home. While no one at Sony is giving exact numbers, there is a hardcap limit of how many can be on a server at a given time. The overflow simply spills into the next server. And yes, there is a plan for intelligent grouping so that friends stay together on the same server.

But they'll nickel and dime you for everything!

Everything in Home sounds pretty damn cool, but it's hard to believe Sony can offer all of this and continue its model of having its Network be free of charge. Well, believe in miracles, because you can enjoy Home for free. Granted, selling premium content will be part of Home's business model (as will advertising), you do get quite a bit for free.

Once you download Home this fall, you have free access to all of the public spaces, your own character, some accessories, furniture and your own apartment. Other items, including additional clothing, are unlocked via premium content, offered free as advertising by third parties and earned by playing PS3 games. Pricing is not something Sony is ready to discuss, but Harrison said, "We have given it a lot of thought."

Outside of Home

One cool way to upgrade your pad is by customizing the view out your window. Everyone's house has "the perfect view" so that no one is stuck looking down into an alley. However, there will be different options for what is outside your window. You may want to look out over a lake, for example. To make your lake view different than others, Sony plans to offer some extras to place in the background. You could put a boat floating out by the lake or perhaps have a flock of birds fly by in the horizon.

AND FINALLY:

I don't want a clunky 3-D interface, I just want to do [whatever]!!

If none of this sounds appealing, fear not. Just about everything you can do in Home can also be done through the cross media bar. It just won't look as cool.