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

[TheChefO]

underwhelming

Perhaps those that were lucky enough to see the realtime KZ demo have a different opinion but "HOME" was not what I was looking for Sony to answer with as their savior. IF KZ is ready to go toe to toe this year with Halo3 then that's one thing, but to hold up a stripped down sims clone as the answer for xb360 and Wii isn't going to cut it.

IMO.

Where are the games Sony?
(Yes I saw LBP and yes it looks good, but not good enough to pay more)

{hitting snooze button on ps3... again}

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Perhaps those that were lucky enough to see the realtime KZ demo have a different opinion but "HOME" was not what I was looking for Sony to answer with as their savior. IF KZ is ready to go toe to toe this year with Halo3 then that's one thing, but to hold up a stripped down sims clone as the answer for xb360 and Wii isn't going to cut it.

IMO.

Where are the games Sony?
(Yes I saw LBP and yes it looks good, but not good enough to pay more)

{hitting snooze button on ps3... again}

Theres a time and place for everything. GDC wasnt a "show a bunch of PS3 games" kind of event, rather its an event focusing on developer support than customer.

Im sure E3 will be "the" place for many PS3 games to be showcased. GDC was more of an appetizer, E3 will be the main course and TGS will be the just desserts (yes a horrible analogy I know )

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Theres a time and place for everything. GDC wasnt a "show a bunch of PS3 games" kind of event, rather its an event focusing on developer support than customer.

Definitely. Showing yet-another-FPS isn't as important at a dev event as showing 'brand new play experience with emphasis on user-contribution'. Especially when your keynote is all about user community gaming.

 

[patsu]

Eurogamer Home interview.

"It actually started life as PlayStation 2 and was going to be a way of creating a very simple 3D lobby system that could connect a bunch of games together..."

MTV Follow-up Article:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1545619/20061113/index.jhtml

"It actually started life as PlayStation 2 and was going to be a way of creating a very simple 3-D lobby system that could connect a bunch of games together,"

Harrison said. "And then when we started to explore it and realized the power of it, we thought actually this should be a platform initiative and this is something we should bring to all PlayStation 3 games and all PlayStation 3 users."

MTV Video Interview:
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=137839
(64 concurrent player is the current hard limit, but they can spawn more rooms automatically)

Perhaps those that were lucky enough to see the realtime KZ demo have a different opinion but "HOME" was not what I was looking for Sony to answer with as their savior. IF KZ is ready to go toe to toe this year with Halo3 then that's one thing, but to hold up a stripped down sims clone as the answer for xb360 and Wii isn't going to cut it.

Home has no equivalent on Xbox 360. It is not a game and does not compete with any. Some people will sit out, others -- including some developers and middleware providers -- who "get it" will embrace the Playstation Home platform (if Sony executes properly).

IMHO, LBP has the potential to take on the big names, and the non-gamers. While it may not be good enough for you to justify for its 600 dollar list price, I have seen "I will buy/bought a PS3 because of LBP or Home" posts in the flora. The question is how many and who... not whether.

 

[slider]

Theres a time and place for everything. GDC wasnt a "show a bunch of PS3 games" kind of event, rather its an event focusing on developer support than customer.

Im sure E3 will be "the" place for many PS3 games to be showcased. GDC was more of an appetizer, E3 will be the main course and TGS will be the just desserts (yes a horrible analogy I know )

You're all welcome to your opinions on analysts but to back up this quote a little bit: Positive(ish) comments on Sony's [url="http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13104] dev tools[/url].

...developers welcomed the belated introduction of PS3 development tools and technologies...

...Sony's PS3 development tools generating "significant interest" from the development community...

The Gamasutra one (2nd link) is a teeny bit more positive.

 

[Titanio]

There's quite a few follow-up articles and interviews on this hitting the web today.

Here's another from Next-Gen (first part, second part will go up tomorrow):

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4922&Itemid=2

In a two-part interview Next-Gen talks with Sony’s Phil Harrison about the company’s extraordinary PlayStation Home and PS3’s new place in the world. Colin Campbell reports...

There's apparently a blogger event in the UK this evening with Phil Harrison, where he'll be demoing and taking questions on Home and LBP again, so we might get a little more out of that (if people ask the right questions!)

 

[slider]

There's apparently a blogger event in the UK this evening with Phil Harrison, where he'll be demoing and taking questions on Home and LBP again, so we might get a little more out of that (if people ask the right questions!)

That's in London - the thing run in conjunction(?) with Three Speech. I should've tried to get a ticket. Oh well. With the rumoured improved blogger relationship we should read about it soon enough. Think there was mention of Phil Harrison taking questions on Home....

...if people ask the right questions...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

IMHO, LBP has the potential to take on the big names, and the non-gamers. While it may not be good enough for you to justify for its 600 dollar list price, I have seen "I will buy/bought a PS3 because of LBP or Home" posts in the flora. The question is how many and who... not whether.

If I had the money spare, I would get a PS3 just for LBP. Yes, it's actually a 'platform seller' for me . I'd love to get in on the content creation action from day 1. LBP has sparked an excitement in me I haven't had from technology in goodness knows how many years. Whereas something like KZ I see as 'another shooter' no matter how advanced the rendering and AI and what-not might be.

Different horses for different courses.

 

[Titanio]

MTV Video Interview:
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=137839
(64 concurrent player is the current hard limit, but they can spawn more rooms automatically)

That's an interesting interview, at least by the looks of Kotaku's summary. It seems the limit in your apartment is 16 people currently, but they're looking at having something like a cross between an apartment and a public lobby to act as "clan rooms" for larger groups. You can apparently use sixaxis for gestures (wave to wave etc.). Some other neat little points in there.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

it seems like you're on the MS payroll or doing an XB360 game

Wrong - we're working on characters for a multiplatform game (outsourced stuff). Also, the other guys did a little texture work for a Sony exclusive game last summer which is quite well known.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Thus, I do see that many of the "applications" I talked about: film festivals, online classrooms, online shared karoake competitions, etc are possible. I mean, even without developer support, people with headsets could go into an apartment made to look like a bar, play music on a TV, and sing (but low-rate vocoder would fubar it up) And why wouldn't media companies show trailers and clips? I can imagine stuff like a 8-minute Spider-Man 3 clip being shown to audiences exclusively, along with online chat sessions with the actors or directors.

Again, the applications you expect won't be possible with the feature set that Home's launching with in october. I wouldn't expect such a significant upgrade that would enable them within a few years. I mean, who's gonna be the lucky 64 (or rather 64 - actor + director...) guys who can join the Spiderman 3 chat? That'd be pointless...

And content creation will probably remain limited. LBP is a good example of what's likely to be possible (build levels from premade assets) and what's not (add your own assets, rules, scripts). You won't see a counterstrike-like mod for MGS4 on a console system - actually that kind of user created content is getting more and more rare on the PC platform as well. Nextgen games require to much work and proficiency for both assets and level design...

I know I'm sceptical, but neither Home nor Game 3.0 is just not what we've been lead to expect. I wouldn't complain this much if Sony would've stayed on the ground with their PR.

 

[TheChefO]

Theres a time and place for everything. GDC wasnt a "show a bunch of PS3 games" kind of event, rather its an event focusing on developer support than customer.

Im sure E3 will be "the" place for many PS3 games to be showcased. GDC was more of an appetizer, E3 will be the main course and TGS will be the just desserts (yes a horrible analogy I know )

Time and Place indeed.

The time to step up their game was/is now, not months from now.

But judging from the responses here and abroad, all they needed to please the crowd was a sims clone.

I was expecting more.

The time is critical, and well ... Motorstorm seems to be a flop so that's one big title down the drain and Warhawk doesn't seem to be much to look forward to now, so to me the timing for this event to show something more than HOME and Little World has come and gone. Sony missed out.

Then again I was not one of the priviledged few that saw KZ behind closed doors so this may be where the excitement is truly brewing from.

To those claiming KZ is just cannon fodder etc. and HOME/Little World is where it's at, wrong. Those two titles may be big to a handful of people but to the vast majority these two are filler. Nothing more. What's worse is the people that would really dig HOME are mostly the same ones that have the system already. Little world is being developed on the wrong platform currently. On Wii, it would make a killing. On a $600 system aimed at hardcore/ av-philes, not so much.

I truly hope for their sake that KZ is all it's cracked up to be. I'm not looking for one monopoly to be replaced by another.

 

[patsu]

I mean, who's gonna be the lucky 64 (or rather 64 - actor + director...) guys who can join the Spiderman 3 chat?

Actually... I don't think the 64 concurrent user per lobby limitation is restricting (For private room, it's even worse -- 16 players per room).

An analogy in the real world is: I can still enjoy the same TV episodes, and participate in the American Idol SMS-voting with millions of people even though my own house only have 3 people.

It's all imagination, metaphor and context. e.g., An online concert/event within the Playstation Home world can be broadcasted to many themed rooms and private homes (Remember Home objects can embed foreign content), A karaoke competition can be done between multiple roomful/teams of people, ...

The world will open up quite a bit if careful design is done.

I know I'm sceptical, but neither Home nor Game 3.0 is just not what we've been lead to expect. I wouldn't complain this much if Sony would've stayed on the ground with their PR.

I don't think Sony oversold anything yet. Look at the interviews, Phil has been rather careful in promising things. The FAQ mentioned possibilities but they are not that far fetched.

There are forum threads with Home ideas, but they are just concepts. Neither Sony nor their partners are directly responsible for these.

 

[one]

And no, I don't think they'll significantly improve the 64 user limit; where I mean several orders of magnitude increase.

And why? In terms of technical feasibility, a typical MMORPG server hosts over 1000 people in the same consistent space now.

 

[cthellis42]

And why? In terms of technical feasibility, a typical MMORPG server hosts over 1000 people in the same consistent space now.

Where they can feasably speak to each other? Yes. Where they are actually processing each others' characters in the local area? HELLS no! Why do you think so many people's systems get crushed on raids (usually just 40-60 people there) and enough active players can make a zone (quite possibly its' own dedicated machine, mind you) crash by bringing too many people and making them all hunt/cast/attack at the same time? You might squeeze in 200 before you tear apart a zone, and well before that time you're certainly causing huge lagstorms.

64 is large enough for most purposes, and controllable enough to make sure things are for the most part stable and lag-free. And, of course, it's a good level to start at; the limit can always be raised in the future after they crunch their network and system numbers.

The challenge will be in their ability to not restrict all communication to that one segment, and if they can process the same live event properly across as many instances as want to be involved. It would obviously be in poor design if 64 is the most you can inhabit at the same time at ALL levels, and that otherwise you have to ping-pong around between other small instances.

If it can be made effectively seamless and feel non-restrictive on most important matters (comminating across borders with anyone you want to, anywhere), I rather doubt people would notice there IS an instance limit.

 

[DemoCoder]

Yes, one can have 1000 people in a chat room. It's called moderation. Have you people never been in celebrity chats on AOL/Yahoo/et al? Hell, I've been in Sun Microsystems Java discussion chats which had more people. Is everyone guaranteed that their question will be answered? No. Can you field tons of questions? Yes.

This situation is no different than talk radio today, where thousands of people are listening, but maybe only a dozen get through to talk with a guest.

With hierarchical chat rooms, you can cut down the chatter flooding people's screens as well. You put every 16-64 people into a room. They can chat amongst themselves as well as see the Q&A from the main moderators of the event. Select people amongst the rooms can be given a voice, so they can speak and their text can escape their chat room.

Again, the applications you expect won't be possible with the feature set that Home's launching with in october. I wouldn't expect such a significant upgrade that would enable them within a few years. I mean, who's gonna be the lucky 64 (or rather 64 - actor + director...) guys who can join the Spiderman 3 chat? That'd be pointless...

First, I NEVER claimed the October feature set would have it, so it's a strawman. Secondly, not everything needs to be enabled on the client. Many features can be implemented on the server and it would not take years to do it, anymore than it takes MMORPGs years to add features. In fact, the rapidity of patches and feature upgrades to both client and server on MMORPGs shows you in fact how quickly content can be added.

As for the pointlessness of only a few people being able to chat with a director, the popularity of town halls, talk radio, film fest screenings, celebrity auctions says otherwise. People value it highly, even if the individual chance of any one person being able to interact is low.

 

[one]

Yes. Where they are actually processing each others' characters in the local area? HELLS no!

I suppose that's where a Cell computing cluster can help by server-side physics simulation about which IBM once had a paper. Over time, they'll test Cell-based game servers for the base platform as Kutaragi has been saying for a while.

My assumption is they can always set up a special beefed-up server for a special event. They don't know the whole real-world load for Home except for their simulation, after the beta tests economic reasons decide the limit.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

DC, I don't think there's any good in discussing current feature sets vs. possibilites 5 to 10 years into the future. You obviously look at Home as what it may become, which is all good and nice, but just isn't here yet. In 5-10 years, the internet as we know it might get replaced by something else...

Remember the Doom3 presentation in 2001? It took id 3 years to deliver what they've promised (and it was really cool) - then another 3 years to finally get close to the game visuals (proper soft shadows, larger enviroments, more characters, realistic shaders) that we've imagined into those low-quality shakycam videos.

 

[Kryton]

First, I NEVER claimed the October feature set would have it, so it's a strawman.

Dear Mods,

As well as f***** can we also add strawman to the list of 'prohibited words'?

 

[patsu]

I suppose that's where a Cell computing cluster can help by server-side physics simulation about which IBM once had a paper. Over time, they'll test Cell-based game servers for the base platform as Kutaragi has been saying for a while.

My assumption is they can always set up a special beefed-up server for a special event. They don't know the whole real-world load for Home except for their simulation, after the beta tests economic reasons decide the limit.

They might, but at the same time, it may be more economical if they outsource/overflow excess traffic to content distribution networks (depending on the content type and volume).

In the near future, we may see more interesting computing-on-demand services like Amazon's S3 and EC2 initiatives.