Phil Harrison's GDC keynote - Home, LittleBigPlanet & more

It's ambitious/interesting, but for simple things that are the exact same as on 360 (music, video, chat) I don't see why this would be better so I hope they let you just go through the PS3's normal dashboard for those and they made HOME the dashboard plus extras. I still need to see how interactive it's going to be when it comes out but it doesn't really interest me now.

 

You should still be able to access those functionalities (if present) in XMB or from within the game like right now. Future firmware upgrade will continue to improve these features.

I don't think the design point for PS Home is to get in your way. It's meant to enable exploration and something else.

 

but tell me please Patsu, did they say if it adds (or will add) the rest of the interface functions allowing the full voice communication and friends lists between (and during) full retail games and not just the included HOME games?

IOW, is this now functioning as LIVE does but with the 3d interface and if not can they/will they add those features and demand of devs to include the voice/friends hooks (as well as achievements) into all of the games?

I've been working while reading here all day and have not digested everything yet.

 

I think the problem in that thinking is the narrowing down of HOME to a few components. Its like saying a jetplane isn't all that interesting because the radio is the same as the radio you have on the table. However, when you consider all the features and good things that the jetplane and its various components and that the car comes for free whereas you're paying $XX dollars for your radio, the perspective suddenly changes.

I do agree that they should have a way to use the PS3's normal dashboard for using those simple features, but if its a simple load that takes you to the same interface while also connecting to the HOME world, I personally don't find much problem with it. I can see Sony not putting this in for the first few editions of the software or so because they want people to explore the features of HOME and to get people curious. Later on, along with the optimizations and features they might put in, they could probably make a checkbox option for this.

 

Yeah some people really love this stuff. Others not so much. I'm in the middle. I will probably be in the PS universe one hour a week at most. But will have fun for that one hour.

 

Home seems like a good idea to attach more value to the console itself and make it more attractive, and it's a good move to further attract the people that might want the games that's coming for the ps3, but they don't really want the actual ps3.

 

Yeah HOME will probably be a seperate MMO thing with it's own special types of videos (not sure how music is going to work) now that I think about it but I don't get what's the point. If you get a dozen people from your friend's list in a private room all using voice chat it can get confusing but like I said, we have to see how much interactivity there is because not only does it have to be functional, it has to be something interesting people haven't used before.

 

Years ago when MS announced X-Box (1) Live, and bragged about how it cost a billion dollars, I though they had purchased a huge commodity server farm that would allow devs and users to rent server space (invisibly and on the fly) to host games. I complemented MS on the effort, because I though it was the right decision -- computing as utility. I was disappointed to find out the reality.

Yes, there are many games on consoles that work P2P. IMHO, 32 player FPS games don't. You get a few people with lucky good connections (close to host), the rest disadvantaged, and even then, you get more lag than a PC FPS. Only the super-craptastic aiming of console shooters hides it.

 

Maybe I just don't understand it. I thought the vPSP was just a world map type thing.

My only problem is that it seems like building a Dr. Seuss contraption to get up some stairs when an elevator would work better. The contraption will look cooler but you are trying to get up a story, not go up some stairs.

 

If I read the signs correctly, these specific online gaming services are under a different team (or teams). Voice and video communication have been promised. They should be available under XMB.

As for cross-game friend's list, I have not tracked it carefully. You should be able to find a thread here that talked about it. A middleware vendor revealed some details last October or so. Perhaps it's good time to revisit. If I were to run the show, these features will be updated over time to match the best out there (but may lag behind somewhat). Afterall Phil talked about opening up communication channels with the user base. So we should have an opportunity to complain er... feedback to them.

One thing that strikes me in this GDC is Sony has a mad, talented team behind their software effort. Some sort of toolkit was mentioned but I don't have the details.

If I were MS or Nintendo, it'd be dangerous and foolish to assume a shallow plan and implementation. Seeing this as just a 3D interface is like saying Nintendo Wii is a motion sensing stick. There are more to it (from content, marketing and business perspectives).

I don't want to make it sound bigger than it is today. At this point, just treat it as your den/home. If you want to do it up, fine. If not, that's ok too. The rest is speculation.

EDIT:
Not to mention, there is still a long list of bug fixes and enhancements to come (e.g., 720p for Blu-ray viewing)

I think not only that. The Virtual PSP should also be able to show everything in XMB, just like a real PSP.

 

yep I agree.

The biggest I've enjoyed on console were BF2 (24 ) WITH a dedicated server but crappy netcode and CoD3 (24) P2P which most of the time was not bad, No other game on 360 has attempted more (yet) AFAIK


Edit:

thanks Patsu!

 

The problem IMO is the person interested in this stuff is not the type to spend 600 dollars on a game machine. I remember the look of disgust on my brothers face when he needed to spend a 100 dollars to upgrade his video card for the sims2 for his wife and kid.

While I would never use the home stuff I think it might attract people. The problem is those people don't buy consoles till the 199 dollar price point.

I hope there is a alternative for those of us who don't want the home interface something more simple and barebones. I just need my friends list and downloadable content.

I do agree for bigger games MS needs to move to dedicated servers if they continue to charge. I don't think every single game needs them but stuff like gears and halo really need dedicated servers.

 

That's what I'm saying. If you pay $50 you should have better service. No 360 games can beat Resistance in online service.
More PS3 games will have dedicated server on the way such as Warhawk.

 

home is nice and all. but whos really gonna use this? the only time im on the dash is when i want to do somthing productive quickly, this seems a little to gimicky. i can imagine my self using this thing on my ps3 for about a min then forgetting about it and if im forced to go through it, to do what i need its gonna be to cheesy and tedious for me. come one sony just give me some background download a regular menu and some more demos and ill be happy and a resistance co-op.

 

That's a conflicting statement, Home is there to make PS3 more than a game machine.

 

the XMB is still there. You must visit XMB first to launch HOME, and we still saw the video/image/music viewer, plus Store.

You people are acting like Sony is going to delete the XMB and when you boot up the PS3, you'll be in HOME and have to go to your apartment to do anything. It takes some serious FUD-twisting sentiment to think that Sony is going to remove all the navigation except HOME.

I mean, really, do you think someone wanting to watch a BRD will have to go into HOME, walk up to a 3D TV to mess with BRD settings? Do you really believe Sony has no human user interface designers on its staff, or no one with even half a clue who would tell management that making the minimal amount of effort needed to accomplish anything so tedious would be annoying?

I think it's patently obvious that HOME doesn't replace web browsers, or XMB, or quick text menus, but is an additional social interface for when you want to do things with other people in a shared experience.


As for queued downloading. yes, it would be nice, and hopefully they are adding it. I agonized over the Xbox360's lack of this feature when it launched too.

 

No matter what sony does the average person will think of a console as a game machine first and foremost. They can dress it up all they want but the average person is going to see it as a game machine.

I think home can pay off in the future when the price point gets to 199 dollar mark. I just don't see a ton of hardcore gamers who are the guys who would buy a 599 dollar game machine spending thier time decorating a virtual apartment. I hope the data is stored with sony because if I did do it I would not want it leaching off my limited internet connection.

 

Well, data you downloaded *FROM* Sony could be streamed by just sending the URL/address of where you downloaded it from, but I doubt photos/home movies would be stored on Sony's servers, not just becaue of the added hassle of replication and disk storage needed, but because of privacy issues. I also don't think people will be able to get into your apartment without you inviting them.

As for price point, are you aware how much money people are spending on Second Life? They sell *virtual realestate* in that game, rented from $5 to up to $300 PER MONTH rent (real dollars), and people have conducted real estate deals in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If having a tricked out HOME becomes as fashionable as having a myspace page, you could very well have people buying PS3s for this service, if and only if, it becomes "fashionable" How many times have we heard the naysayers before? The price argument gets old after a while. The iPod was supposed to be a failure too, because it was so friggin expensive compared to other music players. Yet, the iPod became the cool, fashionable thing to have, and now they're outselling everything.

I am personally not very interested in HOME, but this idea that the only people who buy $500-600 consoles are the few hardcore people who want to play GoW or RFoM type games, I think it somewhat mistake. It is true that mainstream people do not buy $600 game consoles. But it is not true that every early adopter only cares about shooters and racers. I'm somewhat anti-social myself, and I don't even chat very much in IM or on the phone, so HOME is just more of what I don't like to do anyway. But there are lots of people who LOVE spending all their time hanging out socializing, and shooters and racers are not neccessarily the most enjoyable ways to socialize.

 

Exactly! The machine becomes something more than than just an expensive adapter that allows you to play some games.

It's certainly working on me, my interest in the soon-to-be PS3 release over here has previously been "I don't care" but it's now been bumped up to "oh".

 

They'll see it for what they want to use it as, for what interest them the most. As far as the majority of my family is concerned, for example, the PS3 is the coolest picture viewer they've ever seen (I'm referring to the Photo Album slide show functionality). Others see it as a great BD player. Other still may see it as a good social club. The two issues here are exposure (getting awareness of the features it does have) and price (which depends largely on the level desirability of for any given person for any given feature(s)).