Sony Home - The official thread*

[patsu]

Fight Night 4 & Buzz! Home Space Tomorrow

Been waiting for the Buzz! Home Space:
http://playstation.joystiq.com/2009/07/15/fight-night-round-4-coming-to-home-this-week/

We already knew the Buzz! Home space -- which features live MyBuzzQuiz gameplay -- would be arriving in Home this week, but we now know that it will be joined by another extension to EA Sports' Home presence. Specifically, a Fight Night Round 4 space will be available during the update this Thursday. In this space you'll be able to play one of two minigames -- though the PlayStation Blog post suggests more will be coming soon -- and you can check them both out in the video after the break.

Looks like a good Home content update tomorrow.

Link above includes a video on the Fight Night home space. It's part of the EA Sports Complex.


EDIT: Japan Home Space had a Gundam update on 7/11:
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20090710_301332.html

(Cool 18m Gundam statue in Home Square)

 

[AzBat]

"We don't release this figure as there are so many different ways of classifying ‘active’ users. But I can say that between 25 and 35 percent of the connected online PlayStation audience have visited Home at least once."
...
"Only 80 percent of users fall into the 18-35-year-old male demographic,"

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24436

That's a lot of guys. Though that could be the same for Xbox Live and the PC too.

Tommy McClain

 

[patsu]

The figure was reported earlier here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1307339&postcount=1191
It has many more interesting stats.

Sony expected 90% to be guys initially.

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.

In practice, I have met quite a few interesting female in Home. It's certainly more than I personally expected too. Was chatting with tirminyl in Home months ago, and a girl barged into our conversation (I think her name was Valerie but I'm not sure anymore). That's the nice part about Home, an open communication as opposed to the invite-only XMB B3D chatroom.

Most of the women I met there are mature and able to fend for themselves against stalkers. The shy ones will run away before I get to them. Sometimes they appear in pairs. ... or accompanied by their boy friends.

 

[AzBat]

Man, you're spooking me. Glad you're not on Live. Wouldn't want you talking to my wife. LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[patsu]

Don't be silly. What's wrong with talking to female gamers ? I'm curious about their preferences anyway. Some of them approached me to talk in the first place (to my male avatar).

Like I said, they are mature and capable. The shy ones run away not just from me, but from everyone else. They were there to sightsee and play mini-games. My kid and wife are up there often too. If you're lucky, you'll meet very interesting and funny people, guys and gals. Some of the girls were more "cruel" than me, making up bad jokes about babies and small animals. Most are hardworking, sincere and very driven students and adults.

 

[goonergaz]

I thought I'd try this out again recently but I'm finding that if I try to go to the EA place (for example) it won't let me due to 'parental restrictions'.

I've turned all those off and it's still the same...has anyone got any ideas? It's a JP unit and I wondered if that might be a factor (on the UK Home)?

TIA

 

[upnorthsox]

I thought I'd try this out again recently but I'm finding that if I try to go to the EA place (for example) it won't let me due to 'parental restrictions'.

I've turned all those off and it's still the same...has anyone got any ideas? It's a JP unit and I wondered if that might be a factor (on the UK Home)?

TIA

When you originally setup Home it asked you for a birthdate, that's what it's going by. There's no way to change it that I know of. Your best bet is to create a new account.

 

[goonergaz]

When you originally setup Home it asked you for a birthdate, that's what it's going by. There's no way to change it that I know of. Your best bet is to create a new account.

but I'm 39!? lol

 

[deathindustrial]

Rule #1: when lying about your age, always pick something 19 or above.

=)

As an aside, I bought a pre-paid credit card a short while back before PSN cards were available in Canada. To use it on PSN (and ultimately to waste a few left over dollars I could not spend on anything else) I ended up buying some silly clothes on Home.

Despite being a pre-paid card, Sony forced me to use address verification. Since it was a pre-paid card, you enter this stuff online. Of course I entered crap (I LOATHE data aggregators) but Sony forced me to verify that same crap despite it being non-valid flotsam - I had to temporarily add in billing data for a non-existent address in Spuzzum, BC belonging to a human waste product named individual.

=)

Cheers

 

[patsu]

Rule #1: when lying about your age, always pick something 19 or above.

=)

As an aside, I bought a pre-paid credit card a short while back before PSN cards were available in Canada. To use it on PSN (and ultimately to waste a few left over dollars I could not spend on anything else) I ended up buying some silly clothes on Home.

Hey, don't spoil Sony ! Buy something more worthwhile next time.


EDIT: From yesterday's Develop session, Sony added Home Developer Network to their Developer site:
http://www.scedev.net/

 

[Delta9]

Those new animated shirts are very cool Buzz space is also fun.

 

[patsu]

It's hard to track Home releases because the content are all over the place. The Home Announcement page needs to be brief, and the Blog has length limit. Again, it's back to the users supporting themselves:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3home&message.id=717917#M717917

Today, we got a bunch of stuff for Buzz!, EA Fight Night, Namco, SFIV, KZ2 and Socom:

* [BUZZ!]Space will be released cleared up from bugs
* EA will be releasing there new Boxing ring.
* Final Boss from SFIV will be coming out tomorrow, if you wish to see it CLICK [HERE]
* AND! We are getting Socom Clothing Both were confirmed here
* Namco Game Space HAS BEEN ADDED! Congragualtion Sony on getting the promised 3 spaces cleared fast! Heres the link
* EVEN BETTER NEWS! KILLZONE 2 TACTICIAN OUTFIT!!!! Link
* MORE NEWS! Namco Rewards are to unlock as of tomorrow!PARTY! CONFIRMED HERE!
* Namco space info is right here Click to see

The links are all in the post above. Ya... that's community support right there.

EDIT: According to the Blog, they have also changed the Mall today. Regarding the "Stuff" store, it's reserved for interactive goods:

The Stuff store is being reserved for interactive items, which will be released in the future.

 

[tirminyl]

The Buzz space is awesome! I just forced myself to stop after attempting to do many times. Though I did leave upset. My first play was with a Beetles lyric quiz. I came in 3rd despite not knowing any songs from heart. I simply matched up the lyrical content with the title. From there I went through 3-4 games being tied for the #1 position. My answer streak was excellent until the very last Family Guy question. I stuck with my answer until it hit me that I had the wrong episode. I tried desperately to run to the other side but no. Too late!

I got bumped from my tied #1 spot and dumped into 4th while the other 3 guys were declared winners! After all those games being in #1 and then missing a question, I get nothing? No winning title? I will avenge my defeat my drafting my very own Buzz questions that no one will ever get! I will be the winner! lol.

 

[patsu]

Heh... the Buzz space is indeed well made. Just the way I like it: compact and entertaining.

The only problem I have with it is the Home object activitaion mechanism. It is confusing and tedious to activate the Buzz game, just like any other Home object. I don't understand why the Home team doesn't want to change it. It would be the FIRST thing I revamp in Home.

Everytime I go to a new space, I always... ALWAYS hear helpless people asking questions about how to activate a game. I think it is very irresponsible for the team to ignore this problem.

[Going to flame Home team in their forum again ]

 

[Arwin]

What do you mean? The Buzz game is simply activated when the next round starts. All they should do is put up a sign somewhere (I may even have missed it) that you'll enter into the match as soon as the next round starts.

It's an awesome space though! Looks great, works great and that it uses the user-generated questions from online is just sheer genius!

I think I noticed something about the ranking in this game - while you rank according to points, if you go to the right answer quicker than people with the same amount of points, it puts you on top. Is this correct or just a coincidence?

Anyway, an awesome space! Nice touch also that initially you can choose which language you want to play (including UK and US versions of English). That's more complicated than it looks I think because it means that when you enter the game you are also transferred to a language specific instance of the game.

And yeah, if you really want to win there's no margin for error!

 

[patsu]

What do you mean? The Buzz game is simply activated when the next round starts. All they should do is put up a sign somewhere (I may even have missed it) that you'll enter into the match as soon as the next round starts.

Yes, there are 2 usability issues:

(A) Entering the Buzz! room: It's the same problem as the Air Race. If the room is crowded, which is usually the case when a space is launched, you need to do the silly "profile skipping" trick to cycle to the Buzz! profile to launch the game.

(B) After entering the game: I was stuck there for a minute. Didn't know what's going on until the current game completes. They should have included some sort of message to inform me what to do right after entering the room.

It's an awesome space though! Looks great, works great and that it uses the user-generated questions from online is just sheer genius!

I think I noticed something about the ranking in this game - while you rank according to points, if you go to the right answer quicker than people with the same amount of points, it puts you on top. Is this correct or just a coincidence?

Anyway, an awesome space! Nice touch also that initially you can choose which language you want to play (including UK and US versions of English). That's more complicated than it looks I think because it means that when you enter the game you are also transferred to a language specific instance of the game.

And yeah, if you really want to win there's no margin for error!

Yap, I really like the Buzz! space, more enjoyable than Xi iMHO. It's rather amusing to watch people cheer in their own ways after they get a correct answer.

The next one I want to check out is the Namco Arcade room.

 

[tirminyl]

[Going to flame Home team in their forum again ]

I will be doing the same. I downloaded the Namco and Buzz space(s). It was extremely annoying to have to enter the map each time to activate, and then download the space. I should be able to open a menu for the space on the map and select download if I have not downloaded the latest version.

 

[patsu]

I'm glad I'm not alone on this. ^_^

Also for the Buzz! space, the other half of the equation is mybuzzquiz.com. You can create your own quiz for others to play even if they don't have the full Buzz! game. Sony is starting to get the hang of Internet marketing
If they continue to stack, integrate and chain services together, plus make things easy to use, they will save a lot of marketing $$$.

They now have about 1.7 million user-generated questions in mybuzzquiz.com:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/buzz-user-content-tops-1-7-million-questions

Since Relentless introduced user-generated content to its popular Buzz franchise, players have contributed 218,750 quizzes made up of over 1.7 million questions. The content is enough, the publisher says, to fill 350 standard-sized Buzz games on disc.

 

[patsu]

It was extremely annoying to have to enter the map each time to activate, and then download the space.

I have mixed feeling about the redownload. I think one big problem is the US updates are very subtle. I can't tell what's changed.

May be the US Home team needs to learn something from the Asia Home team:

18m Gundam statue in Japan Home Square:

Spaceship ferrying people to Irem from Hong Kong Home Square:

(They should do the animation and download in the background instead)

If they throw in interesting or unexpected items, the default US spaces wouldn't be so boring/sterile too.

 

[Gradthrawn]

No discussion about the Singing NPC Home character video up on the JP PSN Store (added about 2 weeks ago)? Or am I simply overlooking that? I still don't even fully understand what's going on in that vid. Thought it was Karaoke at first, but the character seems to be an NPC placed in different locations throughout Home, doing different activities. With the main area apparently being a stage on the waterfront where she's singing.