Sony Home - The official thread*

Then they better kill the project now :D

I don't see any other way out unless Sony takes a lead in Home content creation at the beginning. Jack Tretton mentioned that there was a delay because no one rightfully owned Home (It fell through the software vs hardware group crack, and landed on WWS).

He also mentioned that they haven't figured out the money making formula for Home, thus creating 3rd party content for Home is slow/difficult. And then they went ahead to announce "Life with Playstation" with third party content. :rolleyes:

They could have rolled "Life with PS" into Home, *especially* when they have 2D Home under wrapped _and_ Home needs more content.


Shifty Geezer said:
It's all good in theory, but a look at PSPs download service, followed by a brief visit to the EU PSN store, amply demonstrates Sony's lack of commitment to content. Seriously, they don't even copy over all the same E3 vids from the US store the EU store! I think Home will be dependent on 3rd party additions. If EA, Acitivision-Blizzard and maybe external companies like Addidas/Nike compete for attention, content could grow. But I can't see them investing without a substantial interest, and Sony won't keep that long if they don't launch with enough to keep things interesting.
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Well... the sneaky EU folks know people can create a US account to download the really big files. IMHO, there should only be 1 PS Store worldwide. They are hiring 2 or more people to do the same thing.

And Home will be incomplete if they don't follow through with user generated content.
 
3rd party non-commercial content won't appear if Sony don't lead the way.
If non-commercial content don't appear, I doubt they can find commercial support from third parties either.
I agree with Jack that Home should be released when ready, but readiness does not necessitate commercial backing of 3rd parties. Home should be an enjoyable experience without those.
 
betan said:
Home should be released when ready, but readiness does not necessitate commercial backing of 3rd parties. Home should be an enjoyable experience without those.
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Yap... and release the LUA toolkit for us hungry people, and we will show them. :p

For a start, Sony and devs can vet our submissions like Echochrome now. Sell the kit at low cost if they must (to cover for vetting time). At least Home won't have third party content problems.
 
I'm very much looking forward to seeing Life with Playstation, myself. I like the idea of seeing the earth visualizer with satellite weather imaging superimposed, and I don't see how that would be improved by being put into Home.

I've heard some noise about user generated content in Life with Playstation, but I don't know what to make of that. If that's something significant that is distracting from Home, I could go along with Patsu.
 
It's a mix of perception/branding, priority and resource issues. Home is a virtual world created by Sony. It can have elements from "Life with Playstation" and also virtual world based (whatever works and gels well together).

For community development at this early stage, they'd need to consolidate the user base; not splinter it into vertical segments yet. Most of the buyers today are gamers and movie buff.

Tune the Home UI to suit all people, be it 3D virtual world, spinning globe or 2D avatars; or something in between.

Tune the Home content to these people. e.g., market Buzz (the movie quiz game) to the Blu-ray folks, create useful online gaming utilities for us gamers.

That's all IMHO of course.
 
I think Sony take localisation too seriously. If they need to choose between no videos, getting the English only videos up, or getting localised videos up with subtitles, and the latter isn't possible, they need to put up the videos anyway.

Having said that, to me personally much will depend on how they handle Leipzig. From the looks of things, regionalisation is kicking in. If Leipzig shows up on PSN full-scale and not in the U.S., and then the same happens again for TGS in Japan, then we at least know what they're up to. Whether it is the best thing to do I just don't know, but I do think this is what it's going to be like.

As for Home, I think they just need to get it out there. As soon as it is out there, I'm sure EA and other publishers will start putting stuff up in there, we'll see game rooms, media events, trailers and Arcade releases, and things will become interesting soon enough.
 
Arwin said:
Having said that, to me personally much will depend on how they handle Leipzig. From the looks of things, regionalisation is kicking in. If Leipzig shows up on PSN full-scale and not in the U.S., and then the same happens again for TGS in Japan, then we at least know what they're up to. Whether it is the best thing to do I just don't know...
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I do, and clearly it's not! Savvy PS3 owners have US PSN accounts and can see a better service with more content, and are left bemused at why Sony implement two different versions of the same application, one gimped, instead of providing one version, the better one, at less work and a better experience for everyone.
 
Yes, but a whole lot of other owners won't bother looking on the US server, or won't bother to read about what's on the US server on the interwebs. I have 7 colleagues with PS3s and none of them hardly even knows what E3 is, let alone bitch about how this game or that isn't coming to the European PSN soon enough or whatever.
 
Yeah but I think the online stuff are meant for the core gamers and early adopters who tend to be rather tech savvy. They will definitely bitch about it. At this moment, I still can't see the point of duplicating some of the resources for upkeeping 2 sites.

The Playstation Blog is another funny example. They should both be able to post to the same site (but different section).
 
I don't quite agree about that either though ... all my colleagues use PSN to download demos and videos and such.
 
:oops: I meant to say the online marketing stuff (e.g., E3 videos) are targeted towards the tech savvy and core gamers. They could target them all by sharing a common area.

Specific content such as release schedule and pricing do need to be segregated to avoid confusions. But a lot of the Playstation information (e.g., developer interviews, E3, firmware update details) can be dished out from "one source".
 
Home is not a social network :p

http://www.developmag.com/news/30254/Sony-Home-is-not-a-social-network

While often described as a social network for the PlayStation 3, Cairns and Wickham said: "Home is not a social network - it's focused on games. It's a visual representation of the PlayStation community."
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Describing the workflow of getting game launching to work, the SCEE staff explained that developers can use the Home Development Kit to author a Game Launch Object which gets submitted to servers and is downloaded by clients looking to launch a game.

Through Lua scripting, developers can bring the game setup options - such as number of public player slots and choice of map / game rules - into Home itself.

Based on the selections, the Game Launch Object writes out XML files with session details and players. The console then resets and loads into the game (either stored on the HDD or on Blu-Ray), which reads the XML file and launches directly into the multiplayer game. Once play has finished, control can be yielded back to Home for post-match discussion.
Click to expand...
 
Sounds great. That should have loads of potential, especially since I think it should be able to save developers time rather than cost them additional time, by having part of the online interface in Home.
 
Arwin said:
Sounds great. That should have loads of potential, especially since I think it should be able to save developers time rather than cost them additional time, by having part of the online interface in Home.
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Yes... I really like how Buzz! has a totally different online experience compared to the full game, or anything else out there. Can't wait for R2's concept too since they highlighted "Social Gaming" as a key deliverable.


Business Week reports on the Japan Closed Beta for Home too: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D928QATG0.htm



EDIT: Looks like the press picked up on the expanded Home trial news:
Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/07/31/ap5274423.html

Some more details on Japan game spaces:
http://www.i4u.com/article19370.html (source: http://www.jp.playstation.com/info/release/nr_20080731_pshome.html)

The beta of Playstation home will feature Namco Museum BETA with classic games of Pac-Man, Galaga, moth, DigDug and Elevator Action.
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WatchImpress has some never-seen-before screenshots:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20080731/pshome.htm


EDIT 2: Heh, new Home beta client for next phase of testing: http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/07/31/home-beta-client-getting-significant-rehaul/

Looks like the Japanese release of the Home beta was really a sign of things to come. Current users of PlayStation Home are being sent e-mails about the availability of a brand new Home client. It's so new, in fact, that users will have to delete the old beta off their hard drives entirely and start with a brand new installation. A test run encourages all Home users to log in tonight to join the ever-growing community.
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I hope someday I can visit the Japan and EU Home squares.
 
Will we be able to travel abroad to other spaces? I presume not, that Sony will want to keep all the best stuff away from European PS3 owners...
[/cynicism]
 
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