Sony Home - The official thread*

[patsu]

Pulled but not re-released yet. The Buzz Home Space is rather unique in the sense that the entire room engages everyone. But running around may get old (Hoping to give it a run).

I heard they are going to release GhostBuster Home Space tomorrow.

SCEA has been hard at work releasing Home Spaces. I just wish they fix the fundamental issues first (or at the same time). Otherwise, the more spaces, the more severe/common the usability problems. @_@

Their attempt at such a hotly requested item (Photo Frame) is very weaksauce too. Free stuff like the Xi games are actually an order of magnitude more interesting than the paid stuff (Look at Club House). Someone must have written or read the specs upside down. ^_^

 

[-tkf-]

I heard they are going to release GhostBuster Home Space tomorrow.

Would be cool if they went with sub hd resolution and low res textures for this space, to make it gamelike!

 

[Arwin]

I actually enjoyed the Transformers promotion thingy a bit. You can access a link when looking at the Transformers poster in the central square that opens a webbrowser with four puzzles. Some of the puzzles use other stuff in Home, and some are standalone (a tile puzzle even). When you solve them they give you a promotion code that you can enter in the redeem code bit in xmb. These unlock t-shirts (at least the first two) which are pretty ok, although I preferred to have maybe a transformer statue or two for in the apartment. I also checked out the Everybody's Golf space, which seems a bit dull but does give you a really cool couch that has a grass texture. I put it onto my terrace in my summer house
I also tried the EA racing game. It's more in-depth than I thought, keeps track of your rating, wins, etc.

 

[tha_con]

Home is seeing some really really cool stuff, I only hope they can continue to "focus" the experience and improve it.

That said, I'm still angry I can't use my photo frame in a Club House.

 

[Arwin]

We don't even have it in Europe yet. You should invite me over to your apartment sometime so I can check out what it looks like.

 

[tha_con]

We don't even have it in Europe yet. You should invite me over to your apartment sometime so I can check out what it looks like.

Yea no problem man, go ahead and shoot me a friend invite on PSN: tha_con.

Sometime this weekend we can link up and I'll show you the frames. The quality isn't bad, but I was somewhat disappointed that you are extremely limited on placement (i.e. you can only put them in designated spots, not wherever you want). The big APT (forget the name) only has TWO spots to put the pictures up Disappointing.

Though, not as disappointing as the zero spots the Club House has.

 

[Arwin]

Done.

Odd that this has fixed spots, actually. Maybe it has a reason, in terms of lighting or budgetting, or whatever. Strange. Sounds like something they could fix in future versions of these spaces though - let's hope so.

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post - there also have been some other improvements that I hadn't noticed before. For instance, without having to download the central square again (so this update must have been implemented a while ago), I noticed that the chess game has had some significant improvements. You can look around you much more now, and the board gives you a lot of assist/feedback on what the piece you selected can actually do. It's quite interesting.

 

[patsu]

You only need to redownload a space when they changed it.

I also think that the Photo Frame feature is limited by memory budget. That's why the larger the apartment, the fewer Photo Frames you can use. [Cue my 2D/2.5D Home complain ]

They have released a bunch of .... stuff ... yesterday. Haven't got around to try them yet. I went to the EA Sports Complex several times and couldn't get into a Poker game at all.

It's bad form to leave players hanging like that, even if Sony and EA want to control their server and bandwidth outlay, they should give us a way out (e.g., put us on waiting list rather than we retry manually, give us priority if we have a larger game library or spend a lot of time in Home, etc.)

 

[patsu]

7 million downloaded

Updated stats from Sony...
http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24182

Since the launch of the open beta in November 2008, the PlayStation 3-exclusive online world Home has gained 7 million inhabitants worldwide, 3 million of which are in Europe, and they have downloaded 6 million virtual items.

Edward said the global figure for downloads scales with users, but he was unable to disclose a precise total. The average Home session duration is 56 minutes.

Most are probably free items since they didn't say paid items.

Of course, the demographics are skewed towards the hardcore, but not significantly so: 80% are male, 18-35-years old rather than the 90% Sony expected.

Yes, yes... bring more casual folks on board. They are more interesting to talk to (from my personal encounters).

In five months, Red Bull's free Air Race game has been played by 873,136 unique users, clocking up over 2.5 million visits and 575,000 hours of gameplay. Average session duration is 39 minutes.

About marketing effectiveness...

I don't know what they meant here:

The game cost around 110,000 euros to develop, but has had an estimated marketing value of 1.5 million euros, according to a third-party media consultancy.

Watchmen campaign:

The three-month campaign around the Watchmen film clocked up 812,544 unique views - compromising 9.3 million viewed minutes - of an exclusive video with director Zack Snyder.

Over 3.2 million visits were made to the Watchmen area in Home. The two free avatar items - Rorschach and Nite Owl costumes - were downloaded 1.65 million times.

Star Trek campaign

The two-week Star Trek campaign resulted in the sale of 450,000 costumes, 250,000 views of the video, while in two weeks, 125,000 people played Transformers puzzle games to gain a free virtual t-shirt and, if they completed all of them, a virtual trophy for their living area.

EDIT: They also talked about PSN stats a little here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/playstation-network-hits-25-million-registered-users

Sony's PlayStation Network has hit 25 million registered users worldwide according to latest figures, and over 500 million content downloads.

The PlayStation 3 and PSP Store currently boasts a library of over 200 games, 1900 films and 9000 TV shows as well as demos and trailers.

Recent PSone title Final Fantasy VII re-released though the store for PS3 and PSP alone clocked up over 100,000 downloads in the last two weeks, making it the most downloaded game on the service in North America.

The top five add-ons downloaded include two Call of Duty: World at War map packs, Burnout Paradise Big Surf Island and the LittleBigPlanet ICO costume pack.

 

[deathindustrial]

The game cost around 110,000 euros to develop...

Am I correct in interpreting the original article as saying that *just* the Red Bull game alone cost them 110,000 € to create? That seems insanely expensive to this non-developer mind but maybe that includes the hosting fees given to Sony?

How much should one of these Home spaces actually cost to create? How about the Home infrastructure itself?

Cheers

 

[patsu]

I see. It sounds like they estimated the "price tag" @ 110K by considering all the costs. Red Bull derived a value of 1.5 mil from the exposure to gamers.

Game devs on B3D should be able to derive a ballpark estimation for Home Space development.

 

[JPT]

How long did it take to create the space? If we can ballpark that, then we could guess at the investment for developing it and the fees for running it.

 

[patsu]

Argh, can't the devs look at Red Bull Air Race and estimate the effort too ? (Like a contract programmer )

I can't tell from the calendar duration because there seem to be long testing period (Look at Buzz, which was delayed by 2 months now ?)

Also, it sounds like the Home managers are planning their next development:
http://www.community.eu.playstation...rd.id=b_EN_PS3_Home&message.id=198412#M198412

(The US Home Manager is in Europe meeting up with the EU Home Manager now)
[size=-2]Please solve some of the long standing usability issues[/size]

 

[patsu]

Another Home Space added to US Home: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009...e-far-cry-2-game-launching-support-tons-more/

This time, Sucker Punch contributed a small app for user generated content. Still not so impactful. They should add something at the Home level (e.g., clubhouse or personal apartment) rather than at specific Home Spaces.

Up first is the electrifying inFAMOUS game space: The Abandoned Docks of Empire City. This awesome space supports the next level of UGC (User-Generated Content) on the Home platform with its Graffiti Wall mini-game. Here, you can use our graffiti tools to design your own unique art to display to your friends. There’s also a voting feature so that you can give props to the creators of your favorite designs, and a feature that allows you to share your masterworks and check out your friends’ latest and greatest creations – be it simple scribbles or extravagant frescos.

The same space seems to have more functionality than others

The Abandoned Docks of Empire City also marks a first for Home in that it will broadcast exclusive media developed by Sucker Punch, specifically for the hardcore inFAMOUS fans. And to top it all off, we also managed to squeeze an extra mini-game into the space – a scrolling shooter-type button-masher called Reaper Shock that lets the community compete for high scores on the built-in global leaderboard (and rewards the most highly skilled with some rad reward items to decorate your avatar and your personal space with). For a full walk-through on the new space, check out the story on IGN.

FarCry 2 added Game Launching...

In other news: Ubisoft continues to deliver by patching their hit title Far Cry 2 to support game launching in Home.

... plus some bug fixes.

 

[Arwin]

Ha, finally another game I own (i.e. not being Warhawk) gets game launching. Though not really my favorite, but hey it's something.

The graffiti thing is interesting - I think we'll see that a lot of games in Home can get a nice PSMC update next Spring.

 

[patsu]

Sony conducted a survey of desired Home features recently:
http://triplechat.com/2009/06/new-home-survey-hints-at-new-features/

It's well intention and forward looking. Hopefully they also realize that it's not a question of what to do, but how they did it that limited Home's success (e.g., scope, depth, purpose, ease of use, seamless integration, funness, etc.).

 

[DrJay24]

So I logged in and it told me I had a full Cole outfit, it looks nice too, how did I get it? I went to the inFamous space and won a medic sweater too. The mini g heard a good DMB song, is this stuff new or unreleased?

 

[patsu]

I didn't get any inFamous outfit. 8^( Not on the home system. I'll check my office one.

I checked the inFamous mini-game high scores. cthellis is up there again. His score is usually among the top 3-5, but he keeps quiet about his ventures in Home.

 

[DrJay24]

Where did the Cole outfit come from? The only thing I can think of is for beating the game. The pre-order code from Amazon is for a Reaper outfit.

 

[patsu]

Seems to be unlocked when you completed the demo: http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/5193.html