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

[expletive]

Maybe. And if so, you'll hear me complaining. But until we see the thing in action, we just have to deal with the spirit of the idea rather than the implementation of the idea.

Fair enough, though i do think we're all being a little overly optimistic on whatll truly be possible with any regularity.

I personally see differences; it's a fine line it seems between what people consider to be a differentiated feature or not. But...

Besides virtual trophies, i cant think of any. What were you thinking of?

Wouldn't you think that cool? Or to tone down the positive tenor, at least 'neat'?

I dont personally think id be doing much of this but i can clearly see from the PC space that it potentially has a large casual audience. I guess my point wasnt necesserily directed at your post, but more the general comparison of Home to Live. Imo, its not a comparison, it is its own application that taps into a live-esque database/platform for some personalization aspects.

 

[patsu]

I don't think anyone is saying Sony can't implement it, just that they should have introduced it in the first version of Home, or even sooner. From the sounds of it, it won't even launch with the initial version of Home.

It's a cool (and convenient !) feature, but not the most fundamental as Asher claimed.

There are alternative ways to build strong communities.

While claiming that PS Home is over-hyped, I find it interesting that Asher feels the need to hype unified friend list that way.

 

[Asher]

Because they are. I don't meet up with anyone here on GW. You don't have to share absolutely everything with the same people to make a community, you know. Home will be one community, from which you can invite members of that community into local game communities, if you want to. What's wrong with that?

A defining component of a community is a unified form of communication.

There's no restriction on being a member of multiple communities.

 

[patsu]

A defining component of a community is a unified form of communication.

There's no restriction on being a member of multiple communities.

Well yes, is there a problem talking to fellow PS Home owners ? Language problems ? You have text chat, voice chat, video chat and emotes. Pick your favorite.

The unified feature comes in handy when you want to cross game boundaries. In PS Home, Sony is starting with a strong common world first to pull the people closer together under one roof. What's wrong with that ?

 

[scooby_dooby]

I don't understand why many think that an unified contacts list is some kind of uber feature, so difficult to implement that basicly only MS can do it.

Obviously it's difficult enough that 6month into the product launch, that was already delayed by 6months, that they still have not found time to implement it.

No one is saying only MS could create a UFL, that's a total strawman argument. What people are saying is that it doesn't currently exist, and asking when will it be implemented, and how will that support be built into games?

 

[Carl B]

Besides virtual trophies, i cant think of any. What were you thinking of?

Well, I've talked about what *I* think is different in just about every post I have in this thread. You'll have to pardon me if I don't want to write it out again.

But that said, if you disagree with me on those otherpoints I've made as to the uniqueness of their implementation, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree. But I'm totally cool with that.

I dont personally think id be doing much of this but i can clearly see from the PC space that it potentially has a large casual audience. I guess my point wasnt necesserily directed at your post, but more the general comparison of Home to Live. Imo, its not a comparison, it is its own application that taps into a live-esque database/platform for some personalization aspects.

I think the Live/Home comparisons are bad ones - an apples to oranges type of thing. So yeah, agree with your take on what class of feature it is.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A defining component of a community is a unified form of communication.
There's no restriction on being a member of multiple communities.

How does that make UFLs essential to communities? Why does a clan on R:FoM not count as a community, and a group on Home that talk about their individual game experiences not count as a community, just because the names of members of those communities aren't all on the same list? Why does a person have to share their experiences with all the people? Why can't I have a friend in R:FoM I can meet up and play with in that game only, who I don't want to know when I log on and what other games I'm playing etc.? I want a community of close friends. I want a differnet community (or communities) or friends and acquaintences. I don't care for them to mix. They are still communities even if separate from each other. That's even normal behaviour for people.

 

[nAo]

Obviously it's difficult enough that 6month into the product launch, that was already delayed by 6months, that they still have not found time to implement it.

Or maybe, maybe..they have other priorities

 

[Asher]

If so, where is unified friend list support for B3D ? Is B3D not a strong community ? And you're saying before XBL, strong community does not exist ? There are many different forms of community building. Please be open.

You don't need a unified friend list for a community, you need a standardized form of communication. For the purposes of B3D, this is served by the PM and forum software.

For games, this is best served by a unified contact list.

Why talk about PS Home using your or MS's framework ? You should discuss PS Home in PS Home context. It's designed that way (trophies/achievements or whatever you call it comes with the Home platform). XMB is a minimalist interface to the Home platform.

Trophies are not inherent to Home, and if they are not accessible via the XMB then people in this thread have lied about not having to use Home.

I tried SecondLife as part of my work but quickly disposed of it. To be specific, you spoke about SecondLife's business model here:

"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."

I did not say it requires subscription. You're confusing the concepts. SecondLife's business model is monthly subscription (of course only for those who subscribed just like Xbox Live), tier/land fees and eCommerce. They also did some sponsorships but I'm not sure how robust it is.

According to the FAQ, PS Home will be based on some sort of advertising and marketing revenue (initially).

Second life's business model is not just monthly subscription, you are thinking on too small a scale. Their business model relies on having many users using free clients in order to drive paying subscribers to purchase land in order to set up stores and the like (eg, IBM is a subscriber that buys land). Think about this a bit more.

Sony plans to get most of its money from advertising and the odd paid transaction, where do you think Second Life plans to get most of its money? Their business models are very similar.

The essence of Home is the sense of sharing a common space and being entertained together. There is no mention on the underlying infrastructure and specific features because they are selling on the experience (to grow an advertisement/marketing-supported world).

Xbox Live is an easy to use, full-featured online gaming + eCommerce platform... They need to talk about the specific features to sustain the subscription model

Xbox Live lacks features in PS Home (because it's not strategic from their point of view) and vice versa.

You're differentiating where it makes no sense to. They are both communities. Virtually the only feature Home will have that XBL currently lacks is media sharing, which I don't think it will lack for long. Look at the direction MS is heading in with Zune, I expect it to go the same direction with XBL.

FWIW, Home also support emotes (visual avatar communications). The room concepts also bring the gamers together. You're missing a large part of Home in your narrow view.

I do not consider emotes to be a "large part", or even vital. Do you remember the MS chat program in the 1990s based on avatars with emotes? That gave way to MSN Messenger...

All together for free ? Show me the URL please... now.

They're not all together, but the features were there and no one particularly cared for them. Bundling a whole bunch of such features together doesn't make it any more attractive

 

[Dave Baumann]

You are assuming Microsoft's business partners, namely Universal Studios/NBC, won't give MS a similar "ace in the hole". This isn't even beginning to take into account MS has far deeper pockets to strike exclusive deals with content providers, and Sony is an inherent competitor to most studios so they may be more likely to side with MS than Sony.

AFAIK movie studios are still under a 1950's anti-trust consent decree so distribution may not be quite as hard set as you think when these things become popularised.

 

[Asher]

I don't understand why many think that an unified contacts list is some kind of uber feature, so difficult to implement that basicly only MS can do it.

I don't understand why a reputable developer would need to resort to a strawman argument on a board with people intelligent enough to see through it?

You can do better.

 

[Asher]

How does that make UFLs essential to communities? Why does a clan on R:FoM not count as a community, and a group on Home that talk about their individual game experiences not count as a community, just because the names of members of those communities aren't all on the same list? Why does a person have to share their experiences with all the people? Why can't I have a friend in R:FoM I can meet up and play with in that game only, who I don't want to know when I log on and what other games I'm playing etc.? I want a community of close friends. I want a differnet community (or communities) or friends and acquaintences. I don't care for them to mix. They are still communities even if separate from each other. That's even normal behaviour for people.

Reductio ad absurdum doesn't work when you mistake the original high-level argument for a narrow low-level argument.

For the purposes of a game console/media center such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, different games will be played. On XBL, this community is larger and integrated due to the implementation of the UFL. On the PS3, the communities are fragmented and smaller due to game-specific friends lists. All Home is doing is adding yet another community, it's not strengthening the PS3 community as a whole -- which is what I'm talking about.

I'd love to see Sony figure out how to implement a UFL, and I think in the context of game consoles it is a very central, fundamental feature for a large community. I really couldn't care less if each game had their own unique community, that's not anything special nor is it particularly that valuable or rewarding.

I want to be playing a game of Resistance and be notified if a buddy of mine wants to play a game of Motorstorm. I want to be able to play Motorstorm and have another buddy ask to share media with me in Home. I want to know when my brother signs on because I've been meaning to settle a score with him in VF6 (assuming it has MP). These are some very important features of building a true community on a game console -- MS set this standard what, 5 years ago? Sony has no excuse for not having it out now, and I fear their "other priorities" nAo refers to are implementing this cutesy avatar system rather than building up their gaming community. Which is alarming, to me, as a $600 game console owner.

 

[nAo]

I don't understand why a reputable developer would need to resort to a strawman argument on a board with people intelligent enough to see through it?

Maybe you're too smart for my arguments and you see through them something that only lives in your imagination.
On this board (and on many others to be honest) I've seen that argument repeated over and over again, I'm try to understand if there's some basis in it since I'm not your resident network expert.

 

[cthellis42]

Because they are. I don't meet up with anyone here on GW.

You heartless bastard! I like Guild Wars, too!

 

[Asher]

Maybe you're too smart for my arguments and you see through them something that only lives in your imagination.
On this board (and on many others to be honest) I've seen that argument repeated over and over again, I'm try to understand if there's some basis in it since I'm not your resident network expert.

If people seriously used that argument, I'm not sure why you'd bother to understand it's basis...it's clearly either tongue-in-cheek or fanboyism.

I'm sure Sony can do it, but they don't consider it a priority. Which is one beef I have with them.

The SCE developers I worked with a couple years ago were generally on the ball. The problem was always bumbling management.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I'm just wondering why Sony is spending time developing a barbie simulator instead of catching up to the basic features of Xbox Live like pervasive voice chat, universal friends lists, achievement points, and so on?!? I mean you can't even tell what your friends are up to on a PS3? They have a long feature list to check off before they should be working on home decorating simulators IMO.

 

[Asher]

I'm just wondering why Sony is spending time developing a barbie simulator instead of catching up to the basic features of Xbox Live like pervasive voice chat, universal friends lists, achievement points, and so on?!? I mean you can't even tell what your friends are up to on a PS3? They have a long feature list to check off before they should be working on home decorating simulators IMO.

This is exactly what I'm getting at as well. There are many features I consider fundamental to an excellent game community, and most of them do not exist on the PS3. As somebody who has desperately wanted these features since the launch, it's almost a slap in the face to see how they've been spending their time developing such a cutesy application.

 

[Carl B]

I'm just wondering why Sony is spending time developing a barbie simulator instead of catching up to the basic features of Xbox Live like pervasive voice chat, universal friends lists, achievement points, and so on?!?

Johnny, stop with the Barbie talk. I'm sure you can fish for less condescending language when looking to describe a feature that several forum members are legitimately excited about.

I mean you can't even tell what your friends are up to on a PS3?

Well, except that you can.

 

[-tkf-]

Again, I view this as incredibly superficial. What is gained from personalizing your space? Why is it only possible to have clan meetings with a 3D space? There is no substance behind the rhetoric.

A whole boatloat of insignificant niceties does not make it amazing.

This is all from your view and eventhough were supposed to do avoid to much VS in these threads it seems your defending XBOX LIVE vs Sony´s Home. I don´t want to generalise to much here, but the usual forums i frequent i find a certain pattern is evolving, those that seem to like home most is either free roaming gamers that isn´t married to any special platform or it´s fans of Sony. Those that think it´s "nothing" special and just "TEXT" packed in 3D and "seen before" and generally finds it very unimpressive usually comes from a XBOX LIVE background. Home does not make XBOX LIVE suck, Home is a different take, in my view a better take and a more visionary view. You will have your Unified stuff sooner or later then what, does Home not suck then?,
I was starting to doubt that Sony could pull PS3 off, but they have shown they can and my confidence in them is restored, thanks to Home really and nothing else.

 

[Asher]

This is all from your view and eventhough were supposed to do avoid to much VS in these threads it seems your defending XBOX LIVE vs Sony´s Home. I don´t want to generalise to much here, but the usual forums i frequent i find a certain pattern is evolving, those that seem to like home most is either free roaming gamers that isn´t married to any special platform or it´s fans of Sony. Those that think it´s "nothing" special and just "TEXT" packed in 3D and "seen before" and generally finds it very unimpressive usually comes from a XBOX LIVE background. Home does not make XBOX LIVE suck, Home is a different take, in my view a better take and a more visionary view.

I think that's a particularly weak argument, considering it should be clear from the left cell of the table next to my name that I'm both an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 owner. I have no vested interest in either platform, I'm not married to any console.

It is not conceivable to you that some people may resent the lack of rather basic online gaming community functionality while functionality of the Second Life is added instead? I bought my PS3 to play games on, not to use it as an online chat room, and I'd appreciate if Sony prioritized things as such as well.