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

[patsu]

it's ok. most people assume when I'm in a "Sony" thread, I have nothing worthy to say anyway.

Nope. Have always respected your posts... well thought out, much welcomed honest look (where's scooby ?) than some em... out-of-left-field ones we see. We will pretend we didn't see this post

 

[Gradthrawn]

It was not missed at all, I don't know how you guys read into my statement that I said accessing it via the XMB was not possible. Just that people will prefer to access it via the XMB rather than through Home after a while, just like people preferred to access their applications on the PC via the Windows Desktop than via MS Bob after a while.

Your statement was that you would prefer to use the XMB, which to me (incorrectly) implied that you thought it was not possible via the XMB. It should be shockingly self explanatory that Home is a community. If all you want to do is invite a friend from your friends list to a game then Home is not the tool for that.

I think some people are looking at this ass-backwards. Its not functionality first and then community second (in regards to Home), its community first and then functionality second. It's an online social area that has additional functionality built into it. Lets say SCE announced that they had made a 3-D social area where people could chat (and that's it), and also added additional functionality to the XMB like friends list game invites, etc. The first thing people would do is complain that they can't do simple things like invite their friends to a game from the Home, and that they have to drop back to the XMB to do that. They would clearly understand that Home is a social area, but definitely complain that its functionality is limited because they can't do many of the same things they can do directly from the XMB. Now, we have the opposite effect. We have the people that are clearly not interested in the social aspect of Home, and seem to be (mistakenly) upset that they will not be able to do it from the XMB. Now, if they're aware that this is a social tool, first and foremost, and aware that they will be able to do most of the same things via the XMB, then that begs the question what the heck do they have to complain about?

And does Sony plan to improve the backend infrastructure for XMB at all or are they going to emphasize Home for infrastructure investments and hence better experience?

I thought the quote...

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.

...made it pretty clear what their plans are. In order for the XMB's functionality to closely match that of Home's (outside of the social interaction) it would obviously have to be improved.

You can bet that in order to set up any reasonably customized apartment, you're going to pay with microtransactions.

You're basing this on what, exactly? The fact that premium content was mentioned? Ah yes, they shouldn't have mentioned that. That way, when it was released, and it became clear that some content would be premium, people could complain that they lied and purposefully mislead consumers.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Nope. Have always respected your posts... well thought out, much welcomed honest look (where's scooby ?) than some em... out-of-left-field ones we see. We will pretend we didn't see this post

Hmm?? I was posting back on the first 5 pages till this thread took a life of it's own.

In short, this is not for me, but I'm glad Sony really raised the bar which will push MS to not sit on their laurels.

A virtual E3 sounds cool, I really like the idea of allowing the vendors to create their own displays, which means everything does not have to be filtered through Sony PR. The big question, as always is bandwidth, the idea of a virtual showroom only works if you can view video's in realtime, and obviously, the quality will suffer as a result. And then it becomes a question of, what's better, watching things in low quality in a virtual showroom, or queing them all for download, and watching them the next day in HD.

So, I'm not sure if the infrasctructure is really there to take advantage of the coolest possibilities. Another example, sharing video's with a friend is awesome, but, not lo-res crappy videos, you would want to be watchign at least a 2 or 3mbit stream, and who has that type of upload speed?? So, I dunno, we'll have to see how it works in the realworld.

 

[scooby_dooby]

You're basing this on what, exactly? The fact that premium content was mentioned? Ah yes, they shouldn't have mentioned that. That way, when it was released, and it became clear that some content would be premium, people could complain that they lied and purposefully mislead consumers.

Oh just relax, no need for this hyper-defensive BS. Let the man speak his opinion.

 

[Gradthrawn]

Oh just relax, no need for this hyper-defensive BS. Let the man speak his opinion.

Hmmm... good point. My apologies. But the hyper-offensive FUD like that gets annoying too.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It was not missed at all, I don't know how you guys read into my statement that I said accessing it via the XMB was not possible.

Replace 'would' with 'will'...

It seems like a Second Life-meets-Microsoft-Bob kind of thing. I can see why there's hype behind it, but honestly after the novelty wears off it's just going to be a clunky way of accessing features people will prefer to get directly via the XMB.

'Would' speaks of missed opportunities. 'Will' speaks of existing alternatives.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Hmmm... good point. But the hyper-offensive FUD like that gets annoying too.

When you put words in other peoples mouth it does. Asher said nothing about Sony Lies, or any of that other nonsense.

 

[Asher]

You're basing this on what, exactly? The fact that premium content was mentioned? Ah yes, they shouldn't have mentioned that. That way, when it was released, and it became clear that some content would be premium, people could complain that they lied and purposefully mislead consumers.

I'm basing this on the reasonable assumption that Sony is losing money hand-over-fist, that Home costs money to develop, and it will be distributed for free. I'm basing this on the announcement of premium content. I'm basing this on somewhat common sense, if there's money to be made, why shouldn't they make it?

I'm also unconvinced of your argument about how this is about community over functionality. If Sony were serious about building community, they'd have standardized voice communication and friends lists across all games. Community is about the people, not about cutesy avatars in a virtual apartment. The keys to an online community would be extensive communication support, which I do not see in the PS3 at all yet. I see Home as an interesting approach to appeal to the female userbase and as a gimmicky kind of feature for demos, but not something game-changing in reality.

 

[patsu]

It seems like a Second Life-meets-Microsoft-Bob kind of thing. I can see why there's hype behind it, but honestly after the novelty wears off it's just going to be a clunky way of accessing features people would prefer to get directly via the XMB.

It was not missed at all, I don't know how you guys read into my statement that I said accessing it via the XMB was not possible. Just that people will prefer to access it via the XMB rather than through Home after a while, just like people preferred to access their applications on the PC via the Windows Desktop than via MS Bob after a while.

MS Bob doesn't belong here though. It's based on a rather shallow Guide/Agent implementation, has very little value, and looks ugly. That's why people by-pass it.

The Agent concept, may still hold potential in marketing... like having the game publishers sponsor their characters in Home. Sure beats annoying banner ads, but we have digressed.

As for the UI, Sony will have to evolve/fine-tune the experience to suit heavy usage (My sense is it's going to be a mix of abstract UI with 3D backdrops). However the biggest thing in PS Home is the "Sharing and changing a common space with everyone else" notion. I'm not sure what's to dislike yet.

You can bet that in order to set up any reasonably customized apartment, you're going to pay with microtransactions.

Long story short, this is what I believe to be a novelty interest. There's no real point to it, or depth. It's a bit neat but it's not a system-selling feature, nor is it something that will be important in the long run.

May or may not be true. As usual it depends on Execution. Online Community is an intriguing social and business concept. A good introduction is the book "Net Gain".

Many people see its potential for marketing and entertainment. Afterall, entertainment is the underlying draw of advertisements (should Sony go that route). Think about it.

Very few people are spending their money on Habbo Hotel and Second Life; and The Sims is a very different comparison as it is genuinely a game -- not a graphical chat room.

It's always a 80/20 rule. 20% of the people contribute, 80% enjoy. Not to mention PS Home will be supported mainly by corporations. Not sure what your point is. Microtransaction may just be a small part of this exercise (at least at the beginning).

If anything is to be compared, this sounds more like The Sims Online which was a complete failure in terms of popularity.

Define success. As pointed out, PS Home has very different purpose, objectives and dynamics from a game. Comparing SecondLife, Sims Online with PS Home is moot. They share the visual elements and some community principles, that's all.

EDIT:

I'm basing this on the reasonable assumption that Sony is losing money hand-over-fist, that Home costs money to develop, and it will be distributed for free. I'm basing this on the announcement of premium content. I'm basing this on somewhat common sense, if there's money to be made, why shouldn't they make it?

As always, it's a delicate balance between making money and keeping customers happy. Advertisement, sponsorships/product placements, event management, rental, interactive marketing, and media sales are all possible sources of revenue. In addition, Sony now has a powerful and direct channel to its customers (It will translate into savings in sales + marketing cost).

I'm also unconvinced of your argument about how this is about community over functionality. If Sony were serious about building community, they'd have standardized voice communication and friends lists across all games. Community is about the people, not about cutesy avatars in a virtual apartment. The keys to an online community would be extensive communication support, which I do not see in the PS3 at all yet. I see Home as an interesting approach to appeal to the female userbase and as a gimmicky kind of feature for demos, but not something game-changing in reality.

Hygiene factor. Sony won't win the war because of voice chat. In any case, voice chat is already a work-in-progress item.

You spoke about revenue source. How does Sony fund it ? At least I can see more revenue sources in PS Home than just a simple or even subscription-based voice chat. Remember we get online gaming functions for free.

As for community building and communication, PS Home supports more variety and depth: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=944510&postcount=5

Sony is not stupid (They are just crazy). They have worked on this for 2.5 years, I don't think it's a shallow and random effort.

 

[cthellis42]

The big question, as always is bandwidth, the idea of a virtual showroom only works if you can view video's in realtime, and obviously, the quality will suffer as a result. And then it becomes a question of, what's better, watching things in low quality in a virtual showroom, or queing them all for download, and watching them the next day in HD.

One wonders if we might see at the very least a precursor of their "grid computing" promises, in that those connected to Home who already have the media can assist in serving more rapidly to others.

We might also see, amusingly, a combination of both. Home-only "Premiere Events" where you go to a particular company's center to watch new trailers, which would also queue the download of the HD version to your HD for later viewing, should you be inclined. If that went on for a week or so before general release, it would not only give more reason for people to hop on Home and tinker about, but also help mitigate the network load that inevitably comes from releasing popular media to everyone all on the same day.

 

[Mordecaii]

I'm basing this on the reasonable assumption that Sony is losing money hand-over-fist, that Home costs money to develop, and it will be distributed for free. I'm basing this on the announcement of premium content. I'm basing this on somewhat common sense, if there's money to be made, why shouldn't they make it?

I'm also unconvinced of your argument about how this is about community over functionality. If Sony were serious about building community, they'd have standardized voice communication and friends lists across all games. Community is about the people, not about cutesy avatars in a virtual apartment. The keys to an online community would be extensive communication support, which I do not see in the PS3 at all yet. I see Home as an interesting approach to appeal to the female userbase and as a gimmicky kind of feature for demos, but not something game-changing in reality.

So basically you're basing your statements about premium content on absolutely nothing? Because, let's be honest, you're not with Sony, you don't know their business plans, and you're just throwing out a wild guess. Of course, I don't know Sony's business plan for this either, only what I've been told. And what I've been told is that there will be customization options that are free, with extra ones coming packaged with purchased games, and even more that you can buy.

Oh, and I'd suggest that you stop thinking of Home as some sort of application where all you do is dress up a character, decorate an apartment, and chat. There is so much more to Home, but you're completely ignoring that.

 

[Asher]

So basically you're basing your statements about premium content on absolutely nothing? Because, let's be honest, you're not with Sony, you don't know their business plans, and you're just throwing out a wild guess. Of course, I don't know Sony's business plan for this either, only what I've been told. And what I've been told is that there will be customization options that are free, with extra ones coming packaged with purchased games, and even more that you can buy.

I only know as much as everyone else here, but I think it's naive to think there's going to be a lot of free content. This isn't a dig at Sony or anything (I think many people here are rabidly attacking me for perceived anti-Sony bias?), in fact MS does this very thing already. I think the most accurate comparison here is to XBL display pictures and themes, and if you want something out of the default set you're going to be paying for it through microtransactions.

Oh, and I'd suggest that you stop thinking of Home as some sort of application where all you do is dress up a character, decorate an apartment, and chat. There is so much more to Home, but you're completely ignoring that.

That's the core of it, isn't it? Add in a trophy case and potentially nauseatingly overpowering corporate sponsorship and I think you've summed it up.

 

[Gradthrawn]

I'm basing this on the reasonable assumption that Sony is losing money hand-over-fist, that Home costs money to develop, and it will be distributed for free. I'm basing this on the announcement of premium content. I'm basing this on somewhat common sense, if there's money to be made, why shouldn't they make it?

So your whole assumption is based on a simple short-term outlook? "If there's money to be made why shouldn't they make it?" Who says they won't? Who says the process of making the money has to be so simple and one-dimensional? By that same logic, Sony and MS should be making money on the hardware and selling at a profit, right? There's money to be made there! Right? Maybe not so much. Maybe the business model they're following dictates loses in some areas, to promote gains in others. Or perhaps even returns that are not monetary at all (not directly, at least)! It doesn't have to be as simple as "they have to make money from microtransactions to keep it profitable."

I'm also unconvinced of your argument about how this is about community over functionality. If Sony were serious about building community, they'd have standardized voice communication and friends lists across all games. Community is about the people, not about cutesy avatars in a virtual apartment. The keys to an online community would be extensive communication support, which I do not see in the PS3 at all yet. I see Home as an interesting approach to appeal to the female userbase and as a gimmicky kind of feature for demos, but not something game-changing in reality.

It should be evidently clear that on the online side of things, PSN is a work in progress. Much like Live was in the beginning for the original XBox. Yes, community is about the people, and so is Home. How does having an avatar and virtual apartment detract from that, exactly? How does that make it less about the people? If its not clear from the keynotes, videos, Q&As, and press releases that Home is about community then I can't explain it any better. You speak of extensive communication support, which Home has. Voice chat, virtual keyboard, and keyboard support. Along with communicating via your own media (pictures, movies, trophies, etc) that can be shared out to othres. Communication via creativity, personalization, sharing, and talking. By your comment...

The keys to an online community would be extensive communication support, which I do not see in the PS3 at all yet.

...It seems like your trying to judge Home's community features based on features the PS3 currently has (or does not have). Which doesn't make sense.

 

[Gradthrawn]

When you put words in other peoples mouth it does. Asher said nothing about Sony Lies, or any of that other nonsense.

My intent was not to imply that asher said any of those things (hence "people"). My apologies if it appeared that way. My intent was to demonstrate that being open about the existence of premium content in no way implies the majority of content will be premium.

 

[patsu]

The now defunct Butterfly grid promised a unified global world using grid computing (Globus toolkit). I was also thinking whether IBM has a hand in it:
http://www-03.ibm.com/grid/pdf/butterfly.pdf

 

[rounin]

That's the core of it, isn't it? Add in a trophy case and potentially nauseatingly overpowering corporate sponsorship and I think you've summed it up.

No you haven't. Have you watched the video at all? Conceptually, home has at least these features:

-its a matchmaking interface with all the features of live
-the virtual arcade for old games. Not sure if this is limited to arcade or home console games
-minigames area
-theres also a theater. I wonder if they'll eventually make it a "real theater" by showing recently put up films in that area.

With potential expansion, they could do a lot more to it.

 

[patsu]

That's the core of it, isn't it? Add in a trophy case and potentially nauseatingly overpowering corporate sponsorship and I think you've summed it up.

Far from it: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=944510&postcount=5

It's different from Xbox Live. Try to look beyond feature set.

 

[Asher]

So your whole assumption is based on a simple short-term outlook?

On the contrary, it's long-term. Sony is already losing money and investors are not too happy about it. This is a business, and the profits do need to be made. Sony is losing lots of money on the hardware, and the money is to be made via software. Similarly, Home itself is free but the content will, by and large, not be free. It's the same business model we've seen in terms of hardware -- it's about providing a platform at a discount then making money off the content.

It should be evidently clear that on the online side of things, PSN is a work in progress. Much like Live was in the beginning for the original XBox. Yes, community is about the people, and so is Home. How does having an avatar and virtual apartment detract from that, exactly?

I never said it detracts, it just does not compensate for the lack of other features...such as a unified friends list.

It seems like your trying to judge Home's community features based on features the PS3 current has (or does not have). Which doesn't make sense.

The only features Home provides over similar features that can be exposed via the XMB interface is that of the Second Life-like environment. And all I'm saying is there's no real point to hyping that up, as Second Life is similar in its business model to what Home will be like, and it's far from a runaway success.

As I said, Home is interesting but it's far from a system-selling feature.

 

[Asher]

No you haven't. Have you watched the video at all? Conceptually, home has at least these features:

-its a matchmaking interface with all the features of live
-the virtual arcade for old games. Not sure if this is limited to arcade or home console games
-minigames area
-theres also a theater. I wonder if they'll eventually make it a "real theater" by showing recently put up films in that area.

With potential expansion, they could do a lot more to it.

I'm not including this in my discussion of Home because all of those things are items the competitors already have and will ideally be available via the XMB as well.

I'm referring to the 3D environment aspect of Home, which is the differentiating feature of Home vs XBL.

 

[scooby_dooby]

No you haven't. Have you watched the video at all? Conceptually, home has at least these features:

-its a matchmaking interface with all the features of live

So you can create persistent friends lists that work throughout all games, and are supported ingame?

For example, playing GT5, you can pull up the XMB, go through your universal friends list, and invite any of your friends to race you online?