Sony unveils 'Home' for PS3

LookingFor

So this looks pretty amazing..

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166926.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0








The introductory video can explain better than I could.. check it out here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/moses/moviesthumbs/17558-home_hd.jpg

KdjaCL

http://secondlife.com/

I hope Sony have done the legal homework this time.


kdjac

Smellyirishman

Yep, this is the only thing about the PS3 so far that has impressed me (and I love LittleBigWorld). Although they just robbed MS,Nin,Second Life,Myspace's ideas and wrapped them up into 3D (or should I say 4D?) it looks like they have done a fantastic job and will set standards if it's done well.

It's still not reason enough for me to buy a PS3 though.

LookingFor

Smellyirishman wrote:

Yep, this is the only thing about the PS3 so far that has impressed me (and I love LittleBigWorld) thus far. Although they just robbed MS,Nin,Second Life,Myspace's ideas and wrapped them up into 3D (or should I say 4D?) it looks like they have done a fantastic job and will set standards if it's done well.

It's still not reason enough for me to buy a PS3 though.

Yeah, LittleBigPlanet is at least as exciting, if not a whole lot moreso. Should probably make another thread for that, it's worth it.

tba

In fairness the text bubbles will not be like that, they will have

"lol"
"xbox suxorx!!"
"STFU newb!"
"lol!"

BlitzKrieg

my comments from different thread


like the idea enough, i mean virtual worlds are always fun. Dont like the look of it cosmetic wise, doesnt appeal to me, I always like my enviroments to be more stylised (especially in character creation)

As an community hub its an amazing idea and one that looks to be combining the popularity of mmo's like second life and wow with Youtube.

But the matchmaking element isnt appealing to me, While the notion of meeting up with friends in a virtual world and then going gaming is something that everyone thinks appeals to them. It will be an extra layer on of coating and *features* when a managable and easy to follow set of lists for friends/servers etc will always be the prefered route if one wants to simply game. but thats just my opinion

then there's littlebigplanet.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/littlebigpl...net-242305.php

Which is more of the sort of stuff I like and is making me want to play it from that video alone.

There is little I can say that's bad about this. Except that it is again another playstation store feature.

Not bad for the game

bad for the console who had a mainselling point of the blu ray.

Its just worrying that all the best things for the ps3 so far (Tekken, gran turismo, ps1 downloads, littlebigplanet, flow, warhawk.) doesnt need a blu ray disc and yet it was the same blu ray support that caused so many problems for sony to begin with.

not to mention its the big extra cost factor.


Overall though, big thumbs up for littlebigplanet, a nod of approval to playstation home, i'll wait and see how it goes when real people are allowed onto it.

flogen

I think Home looks great and has some nice ideas to it, but the execution will be critical.

For example - it could just become a second Second Life, which to me is nothing more than an overhyped chatroom. It may also prove to be pointless if there's no reason to actually go there - I know I wouldn't go onto it just to chat to strangers, so the additional content and games etc. would be critical.

My cynical side sees this as an additional layer of premium content Sony can now offer - from clothes to furniture for your "house" to the video and minigame content. Fair enough for them from a business point of view, but they'll have to be careful not to make it so that the service is pointless for those without a credit card.

I mean, while it seems to be way more indepth than the Wii Mii channel, the point of that isn't to provide a chat-based service, it's just to give the machine's users their own basic avatars for games like Wii Sports and Everybody Votes etc. - naturally Home should be expected to offer far more than that (and far more than Second Life)

LookingFor

BlitzKrieg wrote:

There is little I can say that's bad about this. Except that it is again another playstation store feature.

Not bad for the game

bad for the console who had a mainselling point of the blu ray.

I think you really need to get off that horse - and we'll leave that for another thread - but Little Big Planet isn't a downloadable. It'll be a full blu-ray release in early 08. There'll be a demo on the PS Store in Autumn.

I'll make a seperate thread for it though.

BlitzKrieg

There'll be a demo on the PS Store in Autumn

I know it follows onto blu ray but its released on playstation network first, cant find anything that says the one on playstation network is only a demo.

According to Harrison, LittleBigPlanet will hit the PlayStation Network "later this year" and on Blu-ray disc early next year.

LookingFor

BlitzKrieg wrote:

I know it follows onto blu ray but its released on playstation network first, cant find anything that says the one on playstation network is only a demo.

The press release

http://www.sys-con.com/read/346431.htm

BlitzKrieg

i see...heh, none of the reports on the game sites called the playstation network release a demo. bah.

still thought 2008

curse you sony, have you got nothing to release in 2007?

humanji

And does anybody want to start guessing how Sony will use this to screw over Europe?

tba

Is that a virtual cinema I see there?

LookingFor

BlitzKrieg wrote:

curse you sony, have you got nothing to release in 2007?

Of course they do, but that would be dragging the thread off topic.

tba wrote:

Is that a virtual cinema I see there?

Yeah. They showed this off at the conference presentation. In fact, they showed it all off in a lot more detail with a live demonstration. You can download or watch the conference video here, it explains everything a lot better.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/gamespace/download_ini.php?pid=&sid=6167003&mode=previews

It's actually pretty amazing how good the video on the virtual displays looks in various parts. In the cinema lobby they're showing a trailer of Spiderman 3, and it's really very clear. There'll be multiple different theaters you'll be able to go into, some with commercial movies (paid for?), some with user-uploaded videos. They're partnering with Grouper on that.

Dont be at yourself

The question being, why you'd want to go to the Playstation Home Cinema, and watch a virtual screen take up a portion of your actual TV to watch a trailer, when you could go to the website (or presumably other parts of PS Network) and watch the trailer full-screen.

Colour me underwhelmed by Playstation Home. It seems nothing more than gimmick, wrapping up features that (hopefully) will exist elsewhere in the Xcross Media Bar in a user interface that's not as intuitive, and no doubt populated by 14 year old americans trying to 'cyber' each other.

Vegeta

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

and no doubt populated by 14 year old americans trying to 'cyber' each other.

classic

sprinkles

Without starting another "look what Sony's done now thread" or something to that effect, I thought this quote from Eurogamer was a nice touch:

Eurogamer wrote:

Sony hasn't had the easiest ride of late. Giant enemy crabs. Riiiiiidge Racer. The price. The European delay. The backward compatibility issue. Executives saying daft things. It all adds up to massive damage to its reputation.

As for "Home", why would you go into it? It's just another gimmick, an emalgamation of a few good idea's from their competitors with fancy graphics. I take no notice of the game achievments on my xbox and as of yet I have found no real need for my mii so what I'll do with my virtual Home is beyond me. Perhaps I'll sell it to some interNerd for real money

LookingFor

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

The question being, why you'd want to go to the Playstation Home Cinema, and watch a virtual screen take up a portion of your actual TV to watch a trailer, when you could go to the website (or presumably other parts of PS Network) and watch the trailer full-screen.

I think you can kind of 'zoom in' to videos to have them occupy the screen.

But that asides, it's the same reason you go out to watch something at a real cinema as opposed to watching something alone at home. To share it with other people. That's what this enables, and I don't think that's a gimmick at all, particularly the sharing of your own content on your PS3 HDD.

Imagine having a group of friends over and launching into Resistance together, then coming back out and watching a short video or listening to music, then booting into some Warhawk, then playing a little bowling or whatever. It looks like the closest any of the console makers has come to replicating the real experience of hanging out, and putting that in an online environment. In regards to everything you can do and the actually useful media sharing and 'party management' functionality, I don't think it's correct to say it's simply a 3D amalgamation of things MS or Nintendo have done.

humanji

I haven't had a chance to look at the videos yet (I'm in work), but I was wondering how you talk in it if you've no keyboard?

And does anyone else see this kind of thing as another reason why our kids grow up overweight and pale? Not saying it isn't cool or anything, but on a point that's more suited to humanities, parents seem to be fobing off their kids on this virtual babysitter and people are just going to end up emotionally retarded with no social skills (unless the person they are talking to stands on the other side of a screen and pretends to be someone they're not.

What I'm trying to say it, won't someone please think of the children?

Burning Eclipse

LookingFor wrote:

I think you can kind of 'zoom in' to videos to have them occupy the screen.

But that asides, it's the same reason you go out to watch something at a real cinema as opposed to watching something alone at home. To share it with other people. That's what this enables, and I don't think that's a gimmick at all, particularly the sharing of your own content on your PS3 HDD.

Am, no. I go to the cinema so I don't have to wait for DVD, or waste bandwidth on downloading a crap quality version, but mostly because the sound and picture is far better in my local cinema. That and they make better popcorn than me.

I'm not overly impressed with this home business at all.

MGS4 on the other hand. God, if they did nothing but show videos of that I'd be happy thing puts me into a pleasure-coma.

LookingFor

Burning Eclipse wrote:

Am, no. I go to the cinema so I don't have to wait for DVD, or waste bandwidth on downloading a crap quality version, but mostly because the sound and picture is far better in my local cinema. That and they make better popcorn than me.

Haha, well so do I But some of us are social creatures too!

I would be much more inclined to actually use my PS3 as a media centre if I could also share that media with other people online. There's not much incentive for me, personally, to use it like a media hub if I can't share it with other people. And yes, I can share that with real world people without this, but the opportunity doesn't arise nearly enough with my non-game-playing friends to make that worthwhile.

humanji - you can voice chat and also string together 'prepared' sentences using different fragments, and there's a virtual keyboard. I'm sure a usb/wireless keyboard will also work as it already does in the rest of the PS3 interface.

flogen

LookingFor wrote:

Haha, well so do I But some of us are social creatures too!

How is watching a movie on your ps3 via a virtual world more social than going to the cinema?

LookingFor

flogen wrote:

How is watching a movie on your ps3 via a virtual world more social than going to the cinema?

It's not. But it's more social than watching a video on my own at home on my PS3.

It's like me asking how it is more social for me to talk to you right now versus going and talking to you in real life or talking to someone else. It's not, but it is more social than me talking to myself or not talking to anyone And OF COURSE, people do talk to people in real life, and do go to movies with other people, but sometimes you engage with people online, and this is more ways to do that in an online community, on a console.

flogen

LookingFor wrote:

It's not. But it's more social than watching a video on my own at home on my PS3.

It's like me asking how it is more social for me to talk to you right now versus going and talking to you in real life or talking to someone else. It's not, but it is more social than me talking to myself or not talking to anyone And OF COURSE, people do talk to people in real life, and do go to movies with other people, but sometimes you engage with people online, and this is more ways to do that in an online community, on a console.

I can see the benefits of some of the social interactions that go beyond basic chat - like sharing music - but going to the virtual cinema and watching a trailer or movie - sorry, don't see the social aspect to that at all... if I'm watching a movie in my room on my own, I'm not going to strike up a conversation or have any interaction with the other 10 people also sitting in their rooms watching a movie on their own... I'd just watch the movie. So to me, the ability to go and watch the film is a novel way to offer content, but it's not social in any way, shape or form

steviec

flogen wrote:

I can see the benefits of some of the social interactions that go beyond basic chat - like sharing music - but going to the virtual cinema and watching a trailer or movie - sorry, don't see the social aspect to that at all... if I'm watching a movie in my room on my own, I'm not going to strike up a conversation or have any interaction with the other 10 people also sitting in their rooms watching a movie on their own... I'd just watch the movie. So to me, the ability to go and watch the film is a novel way to offer content, but it's not social in any way, shape or form

Every single week the Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, 24 and other forums on boards.ie spring into life right after the show airs because people who were sitting in rooms watching them on their own wanted to discuss what happened with other people who were sitting in rooms watching them on their own.

So I see this encouraging exactly the same sort of behaviour by actively bringing people who've just watched the same movie or show together without the need to actively seek out message boards like boards.ie

BlitzKrieg

i'm curious to how the theatre thing will work?

will the videos be on at certain times and people go in together to watch it, or is it just like a big old youtube and you can watch at your leasuire?

LookingFor

flogen wrote:

I can see the benefits of some of the social interactions that go beyond basic chat - like sharing music - but going to the virtual cinema and watching a trailer or movie - sorry, don't see the social aspect to that at all... if I'm watching a movie in my room on my own, I'm not going to strike up a conversation or have any interaction with the other 10 people also sitting in their rooms watching a movie on their own... I'd just watch the movie. So to me, the ability to go and watch the film is a novel way to offer content, but it's not social in any way, shape or form

I agree to a large extent about movies, a lot of people like to just watch a movie and not talk at all. But video more generally - youtube-style vids, tv shows, music videos, whatever - I think that's different.

In terms of the theatre, I'd imagine it's video on demand, and groups can go in and start a movie together. But that wasn't totally clarified.

There's some more details in these articles:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/771/771763p1.html

http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/psp/game/news/article.jsp?articleId=20070308143628880090&releaseId=20070308143628880090&sectionId=1006&pageId=20070308144051932069

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3157889

Some noteworthy things:

- Public spaces will be moderated, so you won't see some user's porno movie in a public space. Private spaces won't be moderated, users are free to share their own content there.

- The PS3's parental controls can be applied, with several blockers. You can mute anyone, or block them entirely and never see their avatar again.

- There's obviously a limit to how many people can be in a public room at the same time (on the same servers). That limit is 64. When one room fills up, they'll spawn another instance. But they're planning to intelligently keep friends together. Ditto there's a limit to how many people you can have in an apartment at the same time, dependent on the size of the apartment and whether you're streaming content from your hard disk.

- There is going to be a closed public beta starting in April. You'll be able to register your interest at http://www.homebetatrial.com/ shortly. Not everything will be in place at the start of the beta, though, understandably. Notably you won't be able to jump from Home to a multiplayer game at the start (which will be pretty important functionality!) But the intention is that Home will become a universal lobby for games, so it might help smooth out the quality of the experience between games with good and bad multiplayer/community implementations.

- They can't confirm it yet, but they're discussing the possibility of exporting your avatar into games with developers.

flogen

steviec wrote:

Every single week the Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, 24 and other forums on boards.ie spring into life right after the show airs because people who were sitting in rooms watching them on their own wanted to discuss what happened with other people who were sitting in rooms watching them on their own.

So I see this encouraging exactly the same sort of behaviour by actively bringing people who've just watched the same movie or show together without the need to actively seek out message boards like boards.ie

Yes - but they don't talk about what's happening during the episode.

LookingFor wrote:

I agree to a large extent about movies, a lot of people like to just watch a movie and not talk at all. But video more generally - youtube-style vids, tv shows, music videos, whatever - I think that's different.

True - it could be used for short video clips a la YouTube - although the "lol"'s and general acceptance amongst those "around" you that the video was good hardly adds much to the experience from my point of view.

Dont be at yourself

Nobody's really mentioned the most disgusting aspect of it either: Harrison's glea in pointing out that almost any surface can be turned into a billboard for an advertisement, or that to buy a bigger apartment or whatever, they'll be extorting real money from you!

thelordofcheese

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

Nobody's really mentioned the most disgusting aspect of it either: Harrison's glea in pointing out that almost any surface can be turned into a billboard for an advertisement, or that to buy a bigger apartment or whatever, they'll be extorting real money from you!

yeah, that part really helped put me off it, kinda like the ingame advertising in bf2142

i need a "vomiting blood from my eyes" smiley....

steviec

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

Nobody's really mentioned the most disgusting aspect of it either: Harrison's glea in pointing out that almost any surface can be turned into a billboard for an advertisement, or that to buy a bigger apartment or whatever, they'll be extorting real money from you!

That was the first thing I said

Well, more about how he was talking about clothes and beverage companies could set up shop, same thing though! Time will tell how it plays out.

LookingFor

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

Nobody's really mentioned the most disgusting aspect of it either: Harrison's glea in pointing out that almost any surface can be turned into a billboard for an advertisement, or that to buy a bigger apartment or whatever, they'll be extorting real money from you!

Well, taking the public space they showed as an example, the level of advertising there was quite acceptable. It's open to abuse by third parties in their own spaces, but they'll quickly realise that a space overwhelmed by advertising will not be a popular one. Remember, you don't have to go to any particular space - like those 'popular coffee shop' spaces You'd only go there if you wanted, if they were offering something interesting.

To use an analogy, a company could make a webpage just pumped with advertising, but they don't, because they know it drives people away. Same will principle will apply here.

Zapp Brannigan

The advertising keeps it free though, so for the sake of lookin at the odd ad we get this for free. Not a bad trade in my view.

flogen

Slurms wrote:

The advertising keeps it free though, so for the sake of lookin at the odd ad we get this for free. Not a bad trade in my view.

Well, I don't think its solely the advertising that will keep the service free and as I said in my first post (you missed that too Nekkid!), there is the possibility that anyone without a credit card won't actually experience the unique aspects of the whole concept.

The basic service is free, yes, but to actually do anything (or at least most things) worthwhile in it, you seem to need to spend real money.

I got that feeling when I tried Second Life out, and I can't see this being any different.

sprinkles

The first customer signs up

thebman

It looks interesting but I don't like the advertising idea's mentioned above. I'm sure it'll be fine in the end but a lot of the services won't be that popular if you have to pay per use and it ends up being expensive overall if you use a lot of the services.

If they go down that road, I don't think it will be as popular as Xbox Live which just has a 50 Euro fee and thats it.