Sony Home - The official thread*

[patsu]

Google Lively seems to share the same technical potential as Playstation Home:
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/09/google-to-relea.html#more

If they can achieve good penetration, it will be helpful to Sony too. Hopefully, Sony can be pushed to enhance its web browser even more

"Everything [in Google] is something that hopefully works well with everything else, but everything is standalone experience," explained Hanna. "We wanted to do something that continued to bridge that gap. It’s a virtual world in a way that every room or space you build is a virtual world. We wanted to create something that is a piece of the puzzle."

Hanna couldn't give an exact date on opening up the API, but he says "that's in the foreseeable future."

"It goes to Google’s philosophy of empowering the user," said Hanna. "Search goes for granted sometimes, but we don’t always think about all the little sub-apps like Image Search and so on and how everything is integrated. This is one more way to meet the users’ needs in different spaces."

Hanna said the product roadmap includes opening up developers licenses across the board, but, also opening up a game development API. That, however, comes after opening up the Gadget API.

"As far as whether it’s an entertainment tool or a business tool, I think more than anything, it’s an information tool," said Hanna. "It ‘s a way for users to get and give information to each other along the lines of a social network, or something that augments a social network."

As for the initial user response, Lively has taken some knocks, including from the Economist, for being dead, but Hanan says, "our numbers are a lot higher than expected." In the first days, the team thought they were under attack from spam bots, but it turns out that they were simply actual users. "That's the power of Google," said Hanna.

 

[patsu]

No video sharing at initial open beta

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/09/sony-no-video-s.html

While PlayStation Home director Jack Buser said that the company was "looking into" adding that feature, he also said that Sony's approach to "user-generated content" was likely to be more of a "Lego-block" structure, in which Sony gives users the parts and lets them create what they want from a pre-determined set of tools.

In other words, while Sony isn't saying whether or not video sharing will ever happen, that doesn't exactly sound like a system that provides for letting users stream videos off of their PS3's hard drives.

I believe Phil mentioned that initial release won't have media sharing, but Sony now has a more narrow and defined idea of how they want to run Home.

Theoretically, people can still share video by uploading them to Youtube and then bring up the webpage to view them in Home (together) -- as long as there are enough memory to do so. That way, Sony does not need to host controversial content or bare the legal risks.

Alternatively, a third party may take this up (e.g., YouTube, Atari) and treat this as part of their community platform. Afterall, Home is a platform.

Personally, I am still looking forward to some sort of user media angle. Hopefully Sony will stay on this path and find a workable solution.

 

[patsu]

Expect Home v1.00 (open beta) after late October

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/09/19/home-manager-says-firmware-2-50-home-1-00-set-for-october/

A bug affecting Home users got a response from the Home Manager, "TedtheDog." The bug currently freezes PS3 systems running the beta and also gives users sporadic Network errors. He says that the bug will be fixed in an upcoming system software update. "2.5 is what we're waiting for and 'October' is what I've heard, later October is my guess."

The firmware update will also be released in conjunction with Home version 1.00, according to the post. Currently, the beta is at version 0.98.

Over at the official PS Blog, the current closed beta has been expanded yet again to include more users:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/09/19/playstation-home-beta-extended-today/

If you’ve applied for the PlayStation Home closed beta, but have yet to receive an invite, you may want to check your inbox again as we’re opening PlayStation Home’s expanded closed beta again to thousands of new beta testers.

 

[Arwin]

Yeah, interesting. Is this still in by the way? Haven't heard much about it:

 

[Jaeyden]

Haven't seen it yet, but it would be a very good idea to be in by the open beta.

 

[patsu]

I believe 3D trophy was one of the first features that get postponed. Video sharing would be the second one to be delayed.

Phil's first presentation highlighted that game launching would not make the launch date, but clearly priority has changed (in this case, for the better). It's probably more important to have as many developers support game launching first to gather traffic into Home.

The rest will kinda pan out naturally once developers start to innovate on top of the Home platform.

 

[DrJay24]

I got my beta invite the other day. How do you find the locations for specific game like Uncharted? The graphics in Home are quite good, as are the char customization. I made one ugly avatar,

 

[DudeMiester]

Yay, I just got my beta invite! *does a happy dance*

 

[tha_con]

I went through the beta in all of about 30 minutes, got all the areas, and took home everything I could, and then was rather bored.

As it stands, there is too little on the front of customization, features were gutted (photo sharing most importantly) and it seems the frame rate takes a serious hit when you're walking around with lots of people around.

I mean, I suppose it was decent, and I was initially very excited for it, but this has done a lot to bring my expectations back down to reality.

 

[DJ12]

Maybe you shouldn't have applied for the beta then and waited until it sees a full release.

Obviously there isn't going to be loads to do in there, why would anyone (other than Sony) spend time building things for you to do when the beta program is to very limited numbers.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Because they're building that stuff for everyone to use, and the point of a beta is to test the stuff you've created? Home's release is expected to be not far off, so you'd expect the beta to showcase most of the features and options as Sony look to test them. As this isn't a paid-for product, there's no benefit to holding back, unless you're specifically wanting to elliminate certain aspects from testing. A lack of content and services now doesn't bode too well for Home on it's release, unless it's a long way off.

 

[patsu]

I went through the beta in all of about 30 minutes, got all the areas, and took home everything I could, and then was rather bored.

As it stands, there is too little on the front of customization, features were gutted (photo sharing most importantly) and it seems the frame rate takes a serious hit when you're walking around with lots of people around.

I mean, I suppose it was decent, and I was initially very excited for it, but this has done a lot to bring my expectations back down to reality.

tha_con, you might want to drop Tanod a PM. He was commenting that he'd enjoy Home more if his friends were in the beta. These sort of errors are too obvious to miss.

As for bad frame rate and lag, LBP and R2 had these problems during closed beta too. But R2 fixed it towards the end.

 

[tha_con]

tha_con, you might want to drop Tanod a PM. He was commenting that he'd enjoy Home more if his friends were in the beta. These sort of errors are too obvious to miss.

As for bad frame rate and lag, LBP and R2 had these problems during closed beta too. But R2 fixed it towards the end.

Tanod is on my friends list, I'll have to give him a holler and see if we can find some way to have fun, lol.

As for the frame rate, it's more of a different league from LBP and R2. R2 maybe dropped a few frames during intense co-op moments, and LBP may stutter online, but it's not really as entering the Mall in Home and seeing about 20 people littered around and watching the 15fps slideshow chug along.

I know Home has a lot of potential, and I'm certianly not trying to sell it shot, it just made me kind of get a grip on reality, as I was expecting a lot come the full release.

 

[patsu]

Well... complain loudly in the beta forum. That way, by the time it gets to me, the teething issues should be resolved.

 

[patsu]

Just got an email to say I'm in the Home beta.

 

[slider]

Seem to be a few from NA getting in in a new wave. Just checked my mail. No news yet. Oh well.

Let us know your opinions. And whether there are enough folks in there to warrant game launching, (which I think is in the current version?).

 

[patsu]

As for the frame rate, it's more of a different league from LBP and R2. R2 maybe dropped a few frames during intense co-op moments, and LBP may stutter online, but it's not really as entering the Mall in Home and seeing about 20 people littered around and watching the 15fps slideshow chug along.

tha_con, I didn't encounter much slowdown in Home. LBP 4P co-op could slow to 1-2fps when joining a game. Early R2 closed beta was sluggish too. Home framerate seems okay so far. I only encountered brief stutter when 20+ people were around doing assorted things.

As expected, I take issue with other aspects in the beta. Will discuss in the beta forum ;-)

Seem to be a few from NA getting in in a new wave. Just checked my mail. No news yet. Oh well.

Let us know your opinions. And whether there are enough folks in there to warrant game launching, (which I think is in the current version?).

Ha ha, I can't find the game spaces for Blu-ray or PSN games. Have not tried game launching. Only toyed with the arcades ^_^

 

[slider]

Ha ha, I can't find the game spaces for Blu-ray or PSN games. Have not tried game launching. Only toyed with the arcades ^_^

Dammit. Well in that case keep us posted to service roll-out!

 

[tirminyl]

Qore subscribers could be coming Home: http://www.edge-online.com/news/home-open-qore-subscribers

 

[patsu]

It is not a good idea.

The LBP and R2 beta worked beautifully because both have exceptional content and the support behind the beta is strong. I believe the Socom beta fell flat because the team wasn't ready for it (server issues, 1.5 patch caused more issues).

For Home, I don't think they should expand it unless:

* They throw in all the content that has been shown so far, and then some (for maximum impact). What I have now is clearly dated. Even better, allow Home to "group launch" into R2 beta, LBP, KZ2, Warhawk, Buzz!, etc.

* Clean up the UI (Minimize number of clicks and keystrokes to do common tasks).