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PlayStation Home: What's new?

"You'll be pleasantly surprised."

Ellie Gibson avatar
Interview by Ellie Gibson Contributor
Published on
83 comments
Eurogamer But doesn't that mean gamers who do just want to play for free are at a disadvantage, compared to those willing to spend money?
Jack Buser

It depends on how the game is designed. A game like Sodium 2 is designed to be a balanced experience. You come in and race with your friends. If somebody wanted to purchase the booster using a microtransaction economy, then it's a matter of game balance.

There's a lot of talk about how to overcome the challenge and that's one of the more interesting things going on in game development right now - how do you incorporate this business model with game design? We're fortunate to have PlayStation Home developers who have really mastered this aspect of balance in their titles.

Eurogamer You've just announced that Home has been downloaded 19 million times. Obviously that's a huge number, but it's still less than half the installed base of PS3. Considering Home is free, you're saying it's a great service with all these free games, why is it that less than half your userbase is interested in it?
Jack Buser

First off, I should say we're very excited about that number. For any service built into a piece of hardware, that's a very significant.

Eurogamer I'm not saying it's rubbish...
Jack Buser

Right. There are a couple of things you have to do to get into PlayStation Home. First of all, you have to be connected to the internet - not everyone's PS3 is.

Second of all, you have to be connected to PlayStation Network. Some hardware is sold into territories where Home is not available. Then you have to come into Home.

So there is a process, and it is free, and we're extremey happy with the attach rate we do have, but you do have to register for PSN and be online.

Who would win in a fight between your Home, XBL and Wii avatars?
Eurogamer So do you think there's a registration block? Basically people can't be bothered to go through the admin required to get into Home?
Jack Buser

I'm not so sure. I really think that in terms of getting people into Home, it's just a factor of how many people are playing games online, how many people are registering for PSN then coming into Home.

That said, to have that attach rate so high is really a testament to not just Home but also the PS3 userbase. That's a very, very high attach rate for a service on a piece of hardware.

Eurogamer I know you're not saying what the number of active users is. But anecdotally, I know a lot of people who installed Home on their PS3s and have since lost interest in the service, and haven't been back. Is that a problem you're conscious of? Or do you think that's just the minority?
Jack Buser

There are two big factors which go into an active userbase. The first of these is acquisition - getting new users to come in and try the service. One of the great things about Home is that it's built into the Cross-Media Bar, it's core to the PS3, so that acquisition is really efficient for us.

The second factor is retention. One of the things we've found to be the killer app for retention on the platform has been games.

A lot of users who are coming into Home now are presented with a new Home navigator which allows them to access content relevant to them. This allows them to to get into these games and see the kind of experience we're providing now.

Bear in mind Miis are at a disadvantage, due to lack of fingers for gouging.

We also see a lot of users returning to the service now they see these kinds of games are available on the platform, and that many of them are free to play.

So we're quite happy with the direction the platform's growing in right now. This focus on games has really treated us quite well.

Eurogamer What would you say to someone who hasn't booted up Home since they first downloaded it? How would you persuade them come back to the service?
Jack Buser

First of all, just come back in and play some of the games. Sodium 1 is currently live, Sodium 2 is coming soon, try out the Midway, Novus Prime, Dragon's Green...

There are so many great games on the platform which are ready to play. If you haven't fired it up in a long time, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Jack Buser is director of PlayStation Home for Sony Computer Entertainment America.

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