MS: PlayStation Home "a nice chat room"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 6 December, 2010

And "not an awful lot more".

Sony's free virtual world PlayStation Home has come in for more stick – this time from console rival Microsoft.

"It's a nice chat room I guess, not an awful lot more," was the damning verdict from UK marketing manager Stephen McGill in an interview with Eurogamer sister site GamesIndustry.biz.

"That's not something that we're looking at. I'm not sure what their learnings are from the Home experience."

Home has suffered scepticism from press and consumers since launch over a perceived lack of content.

Sony, however, has described it as a "huge success".

"With numbers like we have, it goes without saying that Home has been a huge success for our company, something that we have been very proud of," the service's director Jack Buser said this year.

As of December last year Home, which is still in open beta, had 10 million users – although Sony didn't specify how it defined users.

Apparently, every virtual item created for Home has been profitable, and 70-minute sessions are the average for those who play regularly.

"We've released over 5000 virtual items on the platform, and we know that once those items reach maturity, they are profitable," Buser said.

"So you see us creating a tremendous amount of virtual items, because it is such a high margin business for us to be in."

Microsoft, however, is happy to pass.

"The honest answer is that, online we're following our own agenda," Neil Thompson, general manager for Xbox in the UK and Ireland, said.

"It's been pretty successful for us over the last four or five years. We're focusing on what we think we can drive and that's where our energies are going to go."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (68) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • linksdad #1 1 year ago

    Playstation home isnt even a nice chat room

  • Segnit #2 1 year ago

    I have no access to 'Home' from Cyprus. So for me Home definitely sux

  • linksdad #3 1 year ago

    Segnit, you are lucky. If you tried it you would never get those minutes of your life back.

  • darkos87 #4 1 year ago

    Microsoft should comment on their own 'Indie Games' and 'Game Room' sections before talking flak about Home. Home launched in 2008(?) and is still updated every week.

    Game Room launched in Spring 2010 and its developer has been laid off.

  • photoboy #5 1 year ago

    As far as I'm concerned Home is that annoying icon that I have to scroll past to get to the PSN Store on the XMB.

  • captain_Carl #6 1 year ago

    Oh hooray another comments thread of Home bashing from people who have no idea what they're talking about

  • drhickman1983 #7 1 year ago

    wonder how long it'll be before raging fanboys from both side of the fence make their appearance in these comments and start spewing their rhetoric?

  • Doctor_What #8 1 year ago

    Is anyone on here one of those 70 minute visitors? Can you tell us what the appeal is? I installed this a couple of weeks after release, had a couple of goes, then never went back. There have occasionally been interesting-sounding things on there, but when I've got a second playthrough of Uncharted 2 on the go, EA Active 2 workouts to be done... Well, Home just gets skipped.

  • PixelPirate #9 1 year ago

    So you see us creating a tremendous amount of virtual items, because it is such a high margin business for us to be in.

    You mean like virtual avatar hats, clothes and accessories?

    Na they aren't worth it, MS would never bother that tosh.

    //sarcasm
    Edited by PixelPirate at 06/12/10 @ 09:14

  • MaoZedong #10 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 09:40:08 17-12-2011

  • captain_Carl #11 1 year ago

    @Doctor_What

    " I installed this a couple of weeks after release, had a couple of goes, then never went back."

    There's your problem. It's improved massively since then

  • dsmx #12 1 year ago

    I quite enjoy the free games that home has on it.

  • Vanmunt #13 1 year ago

    Unfortunately the gaming world doesn't revolve around the internet warriors and 360 and ps3 fanboys.. everytime I have popped into home it is packed.. perhaps all these people in home are the same as bought the wii, kinect and all the other things I am told by the same people over and over again on this site is rubbish.

  • bladdard #14 1 year ago

    Home is fun for a 15 minutes if you create a sexy girl avatar and watch all the girlfriendless nerds follow you around benny hill style constantly asking where you're from. You can be quite creative with the responses, "I'm from your dreams baby".

    *edit* I've been negged by the person who realised the sexy girl they were cybersexing was really a man. ;)
    Edited by bladdard at 06/12/10 @ 09:37

  • ElNino9 #15 1 year ago

    Homelol

  • mfnick #16 1 year ago

    Kinect; "Nice for party games, not an awful lot more"

  • bladdard #17 1 year ago

    Microsoft Zune good for ...... err???

  • aphex187 #18 1 year ago

    MS always criticize others yet never stand up for their own failures (remember that camera and 'Your in the Movies' plus 'Game Room' lol!). At least Sony are carrying on with it updating it week in week out even with negative abuse from the media.

    MS will always come across as that brattish brother you always wanted to pummel into your bunk bed as a kid.

  • frunk #19 1 year ago

    Who cares... at best its something that some users enjoy. At worst its an icon on the XMB to scroll past. I don't have to pay for it unless I want to.

    So Home... not for me... but really not worth serious critisism.

    If this was on XBox I bet it would only be available with Gold. Then it would be worth of critisism as money has to pass hands.

  • ouchio #20 1 year ago

    Home is a fun diversion that has improves exponentially since the early days. Lots of people love it and its a great money spinner for Sony, people love buying their virtual items. And its free and completely optional, i wish that i could be given the option to delete that stupid avatar thing that infantilizes my xbox every time i turn it on
    Plus the Alphazone ARG thing that was on home a while back was VERY popular and well received and a hell of a lot of fun they should do more events like that
    Edited by ouchio at 06/12/10 @ 09:58

  • mossychops001 #21 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 11:49:27 04-05-2012

  • Dizzy #22 1 year ago

    >Playstation home isnt even a nice chat room

    Lol

  • Whitster #23 1 year ago

    I tried Home for a little bit when I picked up my PS3 Slim back in Febuary, but I couldn't see what the appeal was. Had a wander about, played some minigames, never went back to it. It's not that I'm against virtual purchases, to my shame I spent 80 microsoft fun bucks on a Pip Boy shirt for my 360 avatar during the New Vegas hype period. I think maybe its the fact that my PSN friend list consists of 2 people who are never online as they're playing their 360s instead that limits me from the social aspect of it.

  • Eighthours #24 1 year ago

    Do you know anyone who uses Home?

    Exactly.

  • waggy79 #25 1 year ago

    @link'sdad

    beat me to it

  • mkreku #26 1 year ago

    Well, I am a Silver Xbox Live user, and Microsoft, you can start criticising others when you at least let me use my f-ing FREE FACEBOOK ACCOUNT as a Silver user.

    As a Silver user I can do nothing, except pay money to Microsoft. NOTHING. Maybe Home isn't good (I don't know), but I am pretty sure it's better than only having ads for Microsoft products shoved in your face everytime you turn on your console.

  • Noble6 #27 1 year ago

    ten million ? everytime I get on it there's about 35 people from my region of about 5 million ps3 owners.

  • Miths #28 1 year ago

    I still haven't gotten around to log in a single time since my first look back when it was first released (still with a beta label back then if I recall correctly?).
    But reading the Playstation blog on occasion, it certainly does sound like Home has been updated very significantly since then?

    Well, I've never really been a particularly social guy - online or off - so I was hardly ever in the target audience anyway.

  • RodHull #29 1 year ago

    I drift in occasionally and have a look around but it's not really my cup of tea. However it's a free service and as long as it remains that way I really can't complain. If Sony get any ideas about charging though....

  • captain_Carl #30 1 year ago

    @Noble "ten million ? everytime I get on it there's about 35 people from my region of about 5 million ps3 owners"

    Probably because each version of a room has a limit of 30ish people.

  • The-Bodybuilder #31 1 year ago

    Home is crap.
    Yet Sony have iPlayer and will be getting other players.

    Log, speck, eye, MS. Sort your house out first.

  • Quint2020 #32 1 year ago

    I've had a PS3 for about 5 months now and I've never even loaded up Home....

  • Shakey_Jake33 #33 1 year ago

    Seriously Eurogamer, taking review quotes out of context for the sake of a controversial headline really does you guys no favours in the long run.

    In this case, the guy briefly mentioned the concept of 'social experiences' (in the broadest way possible), and the interviewer (quite reasonably) asks if that may take the form of something like PlayStation Home. The response was quite venom-free, stating his perception of what the can (or cannot) be learnt from PlayStation Home, in direct response to the question. Taken out of context, it makes the poor guy sound like he's throwing mud at the competition, which is not how it reads in the context of the interview.

    These news articles are becomingly increasingly frequent, and make the site feel like the gaming equivelent of The Sun.

  • thebuttonz #34 1 year ago

    Remember that he was asked this question ad gave an honest response. He didn't 'slam Home', or indeed comment unprovoked.

    I'm an avid XB user and fan, but they need to be very quiet about what their dashboard offers. Having no interweb browser is absolutely unacceptable. Even my nintendo DS can do this... The XBL Twitter client without a browser attached is hyper pointless.

  • FutureDave #35 1 year ago

    It's a great idea, awfully executed.

  • JBlokeUK #36 1 year ago

    In other news, my willy is bigger than yours.

    I never thought that the major players in the gaming industry would turn to childish statements.

    For the record I haven't used Home for a long time. I prefer to spend the free time I do get to actually play games.

  • uknortherner2000 #37 1 year ago

    @cheekybyname

    You mean there are people out there who still haven't added him to their ignore list?

  • JBlokeUK #38 1 year ago

    Did that eons ago.

  • drumbaby #39 1 year ago

    Nice to know that Msoft are qualified to make such a judgment because they use Home as a chat room.

  • bladdard #40 1 year ago

    I never add fanboi's to my ignore list, I find them some of the most amusing forumites.

  • funkateer #41 1 year ago

    Taking yet another quote out of context purely for fanboy baiting...
    I'm this close to removing my account here.

  • JBlokeUK #42 1 year ago

    Yeah EG is fast becoming like a tabloid newspaper these days.

  • chris_ace #43 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • davisorle #44 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:13 09-05-2012

  • Noble6 #45 1 year ago

    @Captain Carl
    I was referring to the main lobby with the massive screens. The rooms, they're a disappointment in and of their own. You'd be lucky to find 5 people in any.
    One cool feature though was the E3 show floor during the expo.
    I actually do spend time on home creeping out the users on there but its just for laughs. Would like to see more people on there but then again I suppose it doesnt appeal to most gamers.

  • KRadiation #46 1 year ago

    My biggest problem with home is the constant updates and having to re download a new area every other week just because they tweaked a poster or video. If the damn thing would just work right away and let you play without having to do long updates and re downloaded I'd visit it more often.

  • Arwin #47 1 year ago

    I regularly visit Home, last time was yesterday. I have to say that since 1.4 it has become a pretty fine service. What is currently working well that you might not realise:

    - voice chat is back and implemented pretty well (now includes voice chat for up to 8 people at the same time, and you can create various chat channels to take part in (clubs get their own chat channels by default)- Home boot up time has been reduced by a near insane amount. You may need to log in once or twice before everything is updated, but after that it's super fast.)
    - The new XMB style menu that has replaced the tiles is also way better and snappy
    - Space load-time for me is 20 seconds max, usually faster, even for new spaces
    - Space download time is typically max my bandwidth (3MB/s), meaning I have them in 10-20 seconds generally
    - The wardrobe system loads faster, allows you to filter your items now, allows you to put items you don't use away for 'storage', etc.
    - framerate is silky smooth now

    There are various other smaller improvements
    - idle animations have been improved, you can boot any game from Home, and see what someone is doing, set a status (I'm happy, etc.), see what games other people are playing if they've booted from Home, etc.

    Personally, I would be pretty happy if Sony decided to enforce developers to start supporting booting into an online game from Home, because how good it is now, I would definitely use it for that and it would solve a lot of issues. And they could allow the voice chat to become persistent too, if they provide the Home chat stuff and party setup as an SDK implementation to developers. It would solve a lot of problems people have with Home right now.

    Home has come a long way, and I wouldn't be surprised if the lessons learnt by Sony could have the same kind of impact that Live for the original Xbox had for the success of Live on the 360.

    If you have some friends you regularly play online with on PS3, you should definitely give this a second look. You'd be surprised.

  • coolbritannia #48 1 year ago

    If you don't like it, don't use it. What's the problem?

  • thedgam #49 1 year ago

    I actually like Home, If you look closely enough, there can be some really good and interesting people there aside from the usual wierdos, and also has some decent enough minigames that gimme' some much deserved break away from all that killin and stuff.
    In the next generation sony might come up with some second-life like home, so let's see where they start of from here.

  • SeesThroughAll #50 1 year ago

    I wish it would even be that useful as a chat room. Most people I try to talk and ask about games to there are not interested in increasing their friends list, and much less in having anything resembling an interesting conversation.
    The download and load times are annoying, sure. But ultimately, the problem with it is that users are not taking advantage of the service. I wouldn't blame Sony if they moved Home to PS+.

  • captain_Carl #51 1 year ago

    @Noble "The rooms, they're a disappointment in and of their own. You'd be lucky to find 5 people in any. "

    Laughing at how much of a load of bollocks that is. YOU may not like it but it's always full of people.

  • Noble6 #52 1 year ago

    @Captain Carl

    Oryt then mate, Im gonna give it a go tonight and if you're right Im hoping to see more people.

  • Ryze #53 1 year ago

    So much double-speak in the Sony quotes - I'm going dizzy reading that fucking shit.

    Some tosser trying not to get himself sacked though his choice of words.

  • WinterSnowblind #54 1 year ago

    The game room developers were not laid off and infact it's had some excellent content the past few weeks.

  • RexRunti #55 1 year ago

    @darkos87

    "Microsoft should comment on their own 'Indie Games' and 'Game Room' sections before talking flak about Home. Home launched in 2008(?) and is still updated every week. "

    People should read the full interview before bitching about a comment taken out of context.

  • oreillymj #56 1 year ago

    70 minutes = time required to download Home Square etc for the 500th time, figure out that it's still shit and log off.

  • makeamazing #57 1 year ago

    I am not a fan of home, not played it much, but you know what, as long as Sony are making a good profit on it, and continue to extend it and continue to make more money from it, why do i care?

    I dont understand the MS avatar stuff either, but the same thing applies, if they can make money from it and invest it back... wheres the problem.

    As long as they are making sure a wide enough market can experience different things and make it profitable, thats what counts. As long as i am not forced to use it (like the avatars on the Xbox) then i am fine :)

  • jefranklin18 #58 1 year ago

    For all the hate here, Home is popular and remains so. Sony make money from it, and people are willing to by virtual items. Sony seem to be cottoning on that they can do so much with it. During E3, there was a replication of their booth to wander around, likewise during Gamecon. Finally, they occasionally do special events such as the Dizee Rascal (or whatever he is called) concert or the Groove Armada one. The GA one was actually pretty cool.

  • BritishBlue1 #59 1 year ago

    Home isn't really my cup of tea but there seem to be a fair crowd of people who enjoy it; every time I go on it's usually packed with people.

  • BritishBlue1 #60 1 year ago

    Oh yeah, does any one else find it ironic that the most requested feature for PSN (party/group chat) is only available in Home...?

  • vizzini #61 1 year ago

    I've never played WoW and doubt I ever will, so trying Home at launch left me feeling like a child window shopper on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees; nice and all, but not for me.

    I go back and look every six months for 20minutes and try some things out(in home, not paris); the Red bull Air race was good fun. But the underlying OOP design of where to stand to get the option to play felt flat out broken back then, I didn't even know you could play it until I saw a video online.

    I last tried Home out to try and watch Sony's E3 2010 coverage live, which didn't work again for some unknown reason(probably user error again) and I haven't looked back since. Maybe I'll have a look this evening, if GT5 doesn't call to me like the Ring from Hobbit; as it has every other day recently.

    One area I feel that Home could be great for is spectating(& match making) of online 3D fighting games like Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibre, Tekken, etc, (and of course tennis/table tennis games).

    If the online matches were arranged like a vast set of tennis courts(as far as the eye could see), so that when you walk by in Home, you could see all the action(from an assortment of fighting games side by side) while they taking place almost in real-time it would really added to fighting games. I was thinking they could use a faked rendering technique for performance/networking reasons, utilising an animated cube map background, as seen in GT5's Top Gear test track,etc.

    You could then stop at any particular match, and select to properly spectate with an actual game rendering client, or add yourself to the next challenger list, if the room allowed for winner-stays-on.

    This is what would get me using Home; but I think it might be a little too much for this generation.

  • man.the.king #62 1 year ago

    I guess Wesley Yin-Poole's work for today is done - he has successfully managed to print quotes out of context to get people riled up and posting stuff both in favor of and against.

    I vote we ignore such flamebait articles collectively instead of giving it the importance EG is clearly hoping we give it.

    I guess I should have started it with not posting this comment on here though :)

  • slickster #63 1 year ago

    its FREE so wots the problem people?

  • chessboxer #64 1 year ago

    @TheDriffter

    If you wanted PS2 BC, you should have bought a launch PS3.

  • Vin #65 1 year ago

    Took around eight minutes to decide to delete from my PS3 (and my memory).

  • mkreku #66 1 year ago

    Well, Vin, you of 28000 achievement points and 122 games, none of which are on PS3, I must say I'm impressed that you managed to install home on your Xbox 360. Nicely done!

  • ninjagoat #67 1 year ago

    Tell that to my sister shes spent upways £400 on it already.

  • JamieR #68 1 year ago

    I haven't used it in a while but I did at times enjoy the games that was free on there but It's not to my taste and at Microsoft they went the same direction with the avatars they just did it differently and I have to turn on my xbox and see a childish looking avatar over my profile area. So Microsoft are in no position to take the piss.