Interview with Eric Lempel (PlayStation Network Director of Operations)

[patsu]

Contains brief rationalization about stuff on PSN and PS Home.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8370&Itemid=2

“We have a dedicated group, our Home Platform Group based in London, that is working diligently to make PlayStation Home into all that you have seen and read, and then some. The key here is that PlayStation Home will be a fully functional part of PlayStation Network, and will remain free to consumers. We have groups dedicated to each area of PlayStation Network, from support for free online gaming, support of current features and future enhancements, support of the PlayStation Store from QA and store management, to what I just mentioned about the team for crafting and implementing the feature roadmap for PlayStation Home."

More in the link. There is also a session in GDC on Home dev tools(s).

 

[Jaeyden]

“I think Xbox Live is a solid service with a lot of good features,” he adds, “but I don’t think any one at Microsoft would disagree that there is still room for improvement.”

What does that mean?

Pot: " Hi Kettle"
Kettle: " Hi Pot"
Pot: " You're black"

 

[catisfit]

I think it means that, they're not just trying to do Xbox Live on PS3, they're producing Home which is planned to offer a lot more than Xbox Live does.

 

[catisfit]

I think it means that, they're not just trying to do Xbox Live on PS3, they're producing Home which is planned to offer a lot more than Xbox Live does.

...and user generated content in the likes of UT3 and LittleBigPlanet.

 

[Diamond.G]

...and user generated content in the likes of UT3 and LittleBigPlanet.

I find it humorous that Sony will probably deliver what MS promised in the 2005 E3 before MS does.

 

[AzBat]

Halo 3 says Hi.

Yeah, I know it's not completely the type of user generated they originally intended, but it's fully featured, gets used very often and got there before LBP and Home.

Tommy McClain

 

[inefficient]

I expect insted of a gamer tag and gamer score, every PS3 profile will get some kind of myspace page. I remeber Phill H showing something like this before.

If they give every user a little bit of space to show what games they were playing, maybe even a little room for a gaming blog and you can browse through your freinds list and see what they were up to that would be just perfect for me. They could just use the built in web browser to access it. And since it is html based you will be able to browse it from your PC as well.

 

[archangelmorph]

Halo 3 says Hi.

Yeah, I know it's not completely the type of user generated they originally intended, but it's fully featured, gets used very often and got there before LBP and Home.

Tommy McClain

FUD

The Forge isn't User Generated Content.. It's User Customization taken to the extreme..

You can alter or change objects in the world only move them around..

MS just attempted to sell it off as Game 3.0 style features but in reality that was all marketing..

 

[AzBat]

Forge is a little more capable than just moving objects around. Plus, there's more to Halo 3 than just Forge, there's also the Theater where you can create your own films or even machinima. All of the content created can be shared with friends or anybody on Live. I'll agree it's not Game 3.0, but I can't see how you can say Microsoft didn't deliver on user content. Yes, I already said it wasn't the same level as they promised, but they should get some credit for what they did deliver. Whether or not they'll be able to deliver Game 3.0-type features before Sony remains to be seen. It isn't easy, as Sony should also be able attest to with Home & LBP.

Tommy McClain

 

[archangelmorph]

Forge is a little more capable than just moving objects around. Plus, there's more to Halo 3 than just Forge, there's also the Theater where you can create your own films or even machinima. All of the content created can be shared with friends or anybody on Live. I'll agree it's not Game 3.0, but I can't see how you can say Microsoft didn't deliver on user content. Yes, I already said it wasn't the same level as they promised, but they should get some credit for what they did deliver. Whether or not they'll be able to deliver Game 3.0-type features before Sony remains to be seen. It isn't easy, as Sony should also be able attest to with Home & LBP.

Tommy McClain

I think you misunderstood my point..

I'm not saying that building a game around user content is easy nor am I undermining Bungie's efforts in what they did produce.. The provided a pretty sound set of tools for users looking to make machinima or create there own [limited] custom multiplayer game rounds.. However this in itself is exactly what I said with respect to gameplay; not UGC but UC..

I guess you could qualify the machinima as UGC but it's still pretty limited as most of the hardcore machinima filmmakers tend to use alot of custom content, whether it be assets ripped from other games/media etc or there own hand-crafted art modded into the game.. Halo3 doesn't support any of this out the box..

I agree that MS went a "similar" route to Sony's Game 3.0 paradigm when they decided on incorperating these features in the game but to be honest it seems far more likely that the overall choice of features was predominantly influenced by the massive Bungie fan community in the areas of machinima (Red vs Blue for example..) & online play (since Halo traditionally dominates a large percentage of XBL play..)

I really don't think Bungie's decisions to include such features were made to cater to general UGC since if it were the case they could have at the *least* created a tileset based multiplayer map editor (a la time splitters)