Have been spending time in Home, here's my wishlist for 2010 Home:
(1)
Further UI enhancements:
Despite a larger HDD cache and improved targeting, it is still too much hassle and slow to get into Home. Activity/object selection remains confusing. Still need to redownload spaces every time something (small) is updated. All these issues have prevented me from going into Home more frequently or longer. It's too much trouble for too little benefits. I almost bought the SodiumOne game but aborted halfway once I remember I had to go through a lot of trouble to get into the game. Other PSN games can be launched from XMB in one click.
If a 2D Home UI is not in the plans, then good luck ! A simple 2D "Highlights" menu for the current space is a great way to start an experience. Being able to launch a Home game directly from XMB is a plus too. When I exit a Home game, it's ok to drop me into Home. Pressing the "PS" button will return me to XMB directly as usual.
For 3D object targeting/selection, a simple "mini-hand" cursor controlled by SIXAXIS or the new controller may be helpful. To avoid getting obscured by the crowd, objects of interest should get the HIGHEST priority in displaying their pop-ups. Alternatively, the designer can also make these objects taller than a regular character. That way I can activate one from far (or just bring up a 2D Highlights menu to select it).
The Home "party system" (argh...). Old news by now. Need a 2D version in XMB and integrated with games yesterday.
Also, revamp the "World Map". It is getting more and more cluttered. It needs to give the users a sense of structure and where to find other like minded gamers.
(2)
Consolidate the goodies and make them easily accessible everywhere
I absolutely
the recent Home TV, Idolm@ster Stage, SodiumOne and Xi ideas. Would like to see Pulse and Home TV combined into a two-segment show (assuming Home TV comes to US). This means that I can watch it in screen saver mode too since the Pulse video is accessible from Life with Playstation. They need to distribute these everywhere, including on YouTube.
I also like the Miku stage a lot because it brings the service to the end users, instead of forcing the end users to go to the theaters to watch a performance (Usually have to wait for another download since I don't visit the Home theater frequent enough).
It'd be good to see the service stream in the background, and appear out of nowhere in the common areas.
Also hope to see more "performances" and game characters when I walk through Home spaces. The original Miku stage also has her appearing in the Central Plaza.
(3)
Continue the user-generated content effort
The photo frame, and the TV are in the wild now. Unfortunately, the frame can only display 4 pictures in my apartment, and the TV doesn't work (It's a dead object). The Clubhouse is extremely limited in functionality. Worsestill, the clubhouse and photo frame are paid-for items. They are all a huge miss of opportunities.
Would pay to see more value added services here. e.g., The cloud service should provide hooks for Playstation Home and other games to use the server storage space.
I just found out my brother-in-law has a PS3 yesterday. He's not online though. We got him registered and had a one-way video conference (He doesn't have a PSEye yet). It would be splendid if we can show him our Home apartment. It already has our family photo highlights so I don't have to scramble to find some last minute. In fact, we should be able to show our media to friends and family over the web, even if they don't have a PS3.
We used iChat and PSEye in parallel, so my in-laws can see our living room with the PSEye while we continue to chat (over both conferences ^_^).
The advertisers will be wary of user generated content, but with the depth of PS Home, there should be an easy way to quarantine both types of content in their respective areas.
