Sony Home - The official thread*

[patsu]

v1.32 Change Log

This site has been very fast and accurate in Home news:
http://www.alphazone4.com/2009/10/home-content-update-pushed-back-24-hours-new-client-1-32-changelog

Version 1.32 ChangeLog:

Improvements
We have reduced the time it takes to log on to Home.
We have also reduced the time it takes to access and browse shops in busy spaces.
We have replaced the generic G1 error that could occasionally be seen when having difficulty logging on with some more specific F# errors that should aid in better understanding any problems you might have.

Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that could cause some people to freeze on the “initialising” step of the log on process after upgrading to version 1.3.
Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when logging in to a Personal Space after upgrading to version 1.3.
Fixed a bug that would allow you to stand your avatar up while playing chess or draughts and then run around without colliding with anything.
Fixed a bug where certain animations played during a mini-game would sometimes not appear.
Fixed a bug that would cause the preview camera in the store to get stuck if it was zoomed right in.
Fixed a bug which could cause a mini-game to become unavailable briefly if the first person to play it leaves without quitting properly.
Fixed a bug where a friend might not appear in the correct place after “going to” you.
Fixed a bug that could cause the avatar to become invisible after exiting the wardrobe.
Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when trying to download a new space.
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause you to automatically join an arcade game upon entering a space with one in.
Fixed a bug that would very rarely cause a crash while playing bowling.

EDIT:
Here's the official note:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3home&thread.id=804456

v1.32 will only be available after the maintenance:

PlayStation Home Maintenance - FRIDAY 23rd October

Hey folks!

PlayStation Home will be offline for scheduled maintenance this FRIDAY from 8AM BST. During the maintenance, you will be unable to access PlayStation Home.

...

Once Home is back online, a patch will be available to download.

 

[wco81]

Doubt it. The chat room is a great addition. Cross game voice chat has been confirmed by a ND developer.

Chat room in what, Uncharted 2, Home or PSN?

Cross-game voice chat in U2, Home or PSN?

 

[patsu]

Chat room in what, Uncharted 2, Home or PSN?

XMB. e.g., In Demon's Souls, some people use the chatroom to agree on where to drop their blue soul stones.

In KZ2, they coordinate the warzone setup since there is no party system.

Cross-game voice chat in U2, Home or PSN?

Allegedly, XMB level.

 

[betan]

Cross-game voice chat in U2, Home or PSN?

I'm curious what does cross-game voice chat in U2 mean?

 

[wco81]

Well I hope they deliver.

I have a keyboard connected but it's still cumbersome to peck out quick messages to gather in the same place.

All they would have to do though is show a bit more status info. Not only that this person is in this game but which lobby, which mode. That's just a few bytes of additional text when you select a particular person in the list.

Really shouldn't require making XMB rooms. The cross-game chat could be useful. But I've never tried to voice chat in XMB because you probably have to go to some sub menu.

 

[patsu]

Behind the scene presentation by nDreams Producer. He created the pretty popular Xi game in PS Home:
http://www.alphazone4.com/2009/10/ndreams-producer-talks-about-xi-story-telling
(Video is in the link -- it's not YouTube )

Xi gave Home its very first immersive and unique game:

David explains PlayStation Home and his background in the industry and how it was nDream’s challenge to bring people back to PlayStation Home. He states that “… there wasn’t much to do [in Home]. It was very beautiful, but there wasn’t really anything to bring people back. They’d come round,have a look… once… and see no reason to come back again. So, our challenge was to be that reason to come back.”

Other highlights include balancing gameplay and story, challenges for developing on an evolving platform, community spirit for puzzle solving and why David cannot play the violin.

 

[patsu]

Is this what Jack Buser meant when he said Home will evolve towards a social gaming platform ?

"3D R-Type Shooter Coming To Japan PlayStation Home"
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/10/28/3d-r-type-shooter-coming-to-playstation-home/

The mini game, R-Type: Flash of the Void, will be in Irem’s PlayStation home lounge next month.

Pictures here: http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1228947_1124.html

 

[tirminyl]

That's interesting.

 

[patsu]

PlayStation Home Not A Business Priority

http://edge-online.com/news/playstation-home-not-a-business-priority

During the London Games Conference last night, Pete Edwards, director of PlayStation Home, said that Home users are spending money on items through microtransactions in Sony's virtual world.

"It’s been a long road," he said. " We've proved there is a market out there and we’ve got a lot of people that spend a lot of time in [Home]. It’s not a priority right now but there is a business model there."

I suspected they were not given enough resources. Posted a negative feedback 2 weeks ago on the Home official forum to "check things out".

Would be a pity if they give up right now.

 

[patsu]

The Home Community Manager clarified Peter Edward's statement:
http://boardsus.playstation.coma/pl...ge?board.id=ps3home&message.id=811749#M811749

Hi Home Community,

Allow me to put your minds at ease about this recent press. The coverage of what Pete Edwards said at the London Games Conference was not only a misquote, it was a misreprentation of what he actually said.

Edwards was saying that monetizing Home was not as big a priority as building a great platform, with a compelling environment and a strong community. Home is still a top priority for Sony and will continue to release quality content and provide a positive experience to our users.

And yes, we will continue working on fixing bugs, login problems, and other user issues.

Hope this helps!

~CydoniaX

EDIT: Here is more left hand (SCEA) slapping right hand (SCEE):
http://kotaku.com/5393859/but-playstation-home-is-a-priority-now-says-scea-exec

Hi Stephen,

Thanks so much for following up on this. You guys & gals at Kotaku are great for exactly this reason.

I can assure you that Home is absolutely a priority for the PlayStation 3, PSN, and SCEA. As the Kotaku team have covered in depth, there continues to be massive and rapid growth of Home across the board.

It hasn't even been a year since we launched, and already we have over 50 public and private spaces to visit, over 1000 rewards and virtual items, and have hosted more than 200 events and parties in SCEA alone. We've had friendships founded, marriages performed, disabilities overcome, community rallies for important causes like Breast Cancer Awareness and 911 remembrance; as well as the less serious moments like Horror Bowling tournaments, epic battles between Hamsters and Humans, zombie revolutions, and tons of celebrity and developer appearances. Literally thousands of important and memorable personal events occur in Home every day, making this a platform an important milestone in the evolution of gaming, and unlike anything else the world has ever seen.

To illustrate how fast we are growing, in the last month, we've launched spaces for Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank, Street Fighter 4, Motorstorm Tekken, Pixel Junk, the Neptune's Suite, an updated Central Plaza, as well as the 1.3 client, making universal game launching a reality. Needless to say, the SCEA Home team is made up of a very passionate group of developers and community managers, and we never rest. Home's growth and success is a huge priority for us from a business standpoint, a platform standpoint, a community standpoint, as well as a personal standpoint. Everyone on the team is a heavy user of Home, and we love and use it ourselves nearly every day!

Oh, and tonight, be sure to check out our huge "Undead Yourself" party, as there will be a massive zombie revolution in Home that you won't want to miss! Check it out here: www.undeadyourself.com

Stephen, thank you again for following up on this and giving us a chance to set the record straight. It really illustrates the quality of Kotaku reporting, and is the reason why I personally read your site every day. Oh, and I love the Kotaku talk radio podcast as well. Keep it up!

Best,

Jack & the SCEA Home team

 

[patsu]

Japan Home additions:

White Knight Chronicles Figure and Clothings
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/11/05/white_knight_update/

[WKC] Version 2.01 adds the following:

Voice Chat
Usable in your My Town area and on quests.

Balance Fixes
Additional quest result rewards and some weapon changes.

Geo Net
Change to the Georama server data format to reduce access loads. Sony asks that you re-upload your data.

PlayStation Home
Support for Home Rewards. Clear certain conditions, and you'll get a White Knight Figure and White Knight clothing.

Mr. and Miss Home [Avatar] Contest
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/11/05/mr_and_miss_home/

Sony invited Home members to submit snapshots of their avatars in early October. Fellow members voted the over 4,000 submissions down to 10 males and 10 females. These finalists can be seen here.

And now, the winners of the first Rainbow Grand Prix Mr. & Miss PlayStation Home competition, as voted on by Home members
...

 

[tha_con]

So WKC will have Voice Chat now?

 

[Rotmm]

Mr. and Miss Home [Avatar] Contest

With over 4000 entries, it must have been exciting for the team to see the creativity and individuality of the people using Home. Here are some of the top 10 chosen by that team:

 

[wco81]

IGN does a status report on Home:

Why is this? Well, consumers are becoming more and more aware of the marketing and advertising process, and as such, are starting to switch off to being directly advertised to. Home integrates this advertising into the experience so that while you're in line waiting to play Chess, you're also becoming a participant in the advertising process. The exchange is, you get to play a game and Sony gets to impress an advertisement on you. Is that value for the consumer? Well, that depends: how much do you like board games and streaming movie trailers?


Ultimately, Home exists to serve advertising - but that shouldn't mean it compromises on its original vision.

The real purpose of Home, as we'd like to see it, is as a valid alternative to the XMB (Xross Media Bar) – the PS3's default menu system and Sony's cross-platform menu of choice these days. By adding the same functionality to your HomeSpace as the XMB, such as giving each user a big-screen TV that streams movies, or a virtual PS3 that launches games and multiplayer sessions, we suddenly have a renewed reason for spending time in Home. The idea of an alternative to XMB is appealing – so long as it's demonstrably a smooth and useable experience that sits on-par with the current experience.

SCEE London is accused of spending most of their recent efforts to fill Home up with advertising content rather than add game-launching functionality.

For instance, with FIFA 10, they have added a menu item to play with friends. But unless I miss something, you can only invite one friend at a time to a multiplayer game. And once you do your invite, you can't access the friends menu again.

3rd-party developers shouldn't have to roll their own multiplayer setup UI. Yet because of inadequacies in the XMB and Home, that is where we are.

 

[patsu]

With over 4000 entries, it must have been exciting for the team to see the creativity and individuality of the people using Home. Here are some of the top 10 chosen by that team:

The competition reflects Japanese' perception of a pageant. May be they like more subdue look ? The other top 10 entries are normal looking women as well.

If you go into Home, you'd know that there are strange costumes in Home. There are also quite a few ugly/wacky (emm... creative) avatars. ^_^

The other aspect is the participants' relationships with the voters. If they are active in the community, they will grab more votes. It doesn't really matter if they have creative look or not -- just like in real life.

Are Miss Universe Top 10 contestants representative of the entire male and female population's creativity/individuality on Earth ? Somehow I doubt it.

 

[patsu]

IGN does a status report on Home:

...

SCEE London is accused of spending most of their recent efforts to fill Home up with advertising content rather than add game-launching functionality.

I think they are experimenting with alternate business models. So that aspect will naturally stand out more. Both SCEE and SCEA clarified that they want to grow the community first, perhaps with more focused on the mini-games moving forward.

As for game launching, they have game launching events from Wednesday to Friday for specific games (every week !). It's more a social party thing than a utility feature. Not sure how well it's doing lately. Unfortunately, the feature is not part of the TRC, so we won't be seeing massive use out of it.

I'd say they should nail down the UI problem first, like what you mentioned below:

For instance, with FIFA 10, they have added a menu item to play with friends. But unless I miss something, you can only invite one friend at a time to a multiplayer game. And once you do your invite, you can't access the friends menu again.

3rd-party developers shouldn't have to roll their own multiplayer setup UI. Yet because of inadequacies in the XMB and Home, that is where we are.

It may be better to add the feature to XMB. There has been rumors of sorts but Sony confirmed that there will be no new firmware update for the rest of this year.

EDIT:

So WKC will have Voice Chat now?

According to that patch note, the answer is yes.

 

[wco81]

When is the last time SCEE released a game? Was it LBP that they published?

Seems like SCEA is involved with the first and second-party games which have garnered the attention.

Is there anything in the SCEE pipeline?

 

[patsu]

I have no idea... but EyePet is EU. SingStar is hands down better and richer in EU. KZ2 is EU. May be they reanimated 8 Days ? I'm sure they are all busy with their next release.

 

[Arwin]

I have no idea... but EyePet is EU. SingStar is hands down better and richer in EU. KZ2 is EU. May be they reanimated 8 Days ? I'm sure they are all busy with their next release.

Singstar is developed in the EU (and has a long history there, going back, what, 6 years now?). LBP is EU also, and is coming with some significant new content soon. Buzz is EU, and there's both a New Buzz version coming out, and a completely new (Cluedo style) game from Relentless, which is out soon as well (at least in Europe). The EyeToy and PS Eye also originate from the EU. Wipeout is EU. I suspect we'll see some studios moving capacity towards the new motion controller too? Of course there's other EU stuff coming in the form of Heavy Rain and such - obviously not everything is first party.

 

[Delta9]

Home has really seemed bigger since the camera update, tons of different costumes now.
I really like the new store preview also