PlayStation Home set for redesign

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 23 August, 2011

Sony creating hub for social games.

Sony plans to redesign free PlayStation 3 virtual world Home.

It will be repositioned as a hub for social games, according to VentureBeat.

"This is a giant leap in the evolution of the platform," Home director Jack Buser said.

"We are going to 'up level' games as the heart of PlayStation Home. This means that Home itself is going to become a game. The first things you see when you get into Home are games."

Home, which launched in 2008, has more than 23 million registered users. This new design focuses on a core group of hardcore gamers who love games, Sony said.

Games will, Buser hopes, keep users engaged for longer - and off of their iPhones, Twitter and Facebook.

These include large-scale group games. The central plaza will be replaced by a futuristic transit called The Hub, which integrates games, quests, events and user-generated content. It's designed to be its own meta game. You'll earn points, too.

Thankfully, Sony plans to update the Home client to create a more streamlined experience upon login.

The new Home goes live this autumn.

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 (25) Latest comment 9 months ago

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

  • youhavenomail #1 9 months ago

    Introduce a punch button and I'll be hooked for life.

  • Architect_z #2 9 months ago

    Destructable environments please!

  • JayArr #3 9 months ago

    The only thing I ever really wanted from Home was the video sharing thing they showed off long before it launched, where you could have people from your friends list over to your 'apartment' and you could stream videos from your console to the virtual television. Obviously that was never going to happen, but it probably would have made Home worthwhile for me.

  • X201 #4 9 months ago

    Good, I've always thought that there was a brilliant idea in there that got missed by people due to failure to properly explain what its is, and through poor execution at the start.

    Given the extra RAM that a PS4 will allow it + a focus on games and gaming, I can see it coming good eventually.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #5 9 months ago

    Sounds good, hopeit works out for them, Home does need ot be a bit more engaging, although it always seems to be full of people, ive said it before and ill say it again, you want hordes of people, just add trophies.

  • PhoenixElemental #6 9 months ago

    the games on Home are crap.

  • ShakaCarnage #7 9 months ago

    But is it out of beta?

  • RodHull #8 9 months ago

    Home was a neat idea back in the day but now it just seems to be an over engineered menu system. Call me old fashioned but If I want to play a game I'd rather just select it from a list. At least it's free though!

  • drxym #9 9 months ago

    They should have done this from the beginning. Imagine how stupid it would be to make a portal for a games console where more effort went into selling shoes and furniture than providing game content and lobbies, clans etc. Except that's what Sony did.

  • DozyKipper #10 9 months ago

    This is a neat idea which might give Home some purpose. The problem with it is that it's all optional. If they made the PS3 boot into Home and you launched games from there, chatted with friends, actually used the avatars etc. then it might have been better. But it would have had to have been stored in firmware and booted in seconds, not minutes as it does now.

  • TudeScud #11 9 months ago

    I hope they don't make it too gimmicky. I kinda like the idea of entering Home and the only expectation of you is to talk. What they could improve in my mind is making various themed hub worlds (not just game based) and have them be quite sizable without intermediate loading areas; reward exploration. Increased character interaction would be nice though. Something to reduce the stale factor.

  • Mister-Wario #12 9 months ago

    I love how on IGN the Home redesign comments are all doom and gloom while the Eurogamer ones are generally positive and optimistic.

  • BritishBlue1 #13 9 months ago

    @Mister-Wario
    Which is ironic considering the US version of Home is considerably better than ours.

  • stepleftstepright #14 9 months ago

    I guess this is a good thing since Sony won't give up on this turd in the first place. Keep trying Sony, I may join you one of these days.

  • Seoh #15 9 months ago

    Please add the ability to fly and actually do cool things

  • Ryze #16 9 months ago

    I want a SHOTGUN in HOME!

  • Biker_Bob_1971 #17 9 months ago

    Post deleted at 15:13:16 09-05-2012

  • Mister_G #18 9 months ago

    Home just needs streamlining. At the moment is too dis-jointed and not very slick. Sony has packed loads of content in there, but quantity doesn't equal quality.

    What they're planning sounds like a step in the right direction.

  • NorUraeus #19 9 months ago

    They should tightly integrate Home and GT5, the combination could be the game TDU2 hoped to become.

  • SEVQA #20 9 months ago

    Basically whatever was going to be in the ‘Getaway’! Then i'll patch up!

  • layleeloo #21 9 months ago

    Please just drop this Sony and invest all these millions you've spent on a better store and online capabilities. I'm sure the majority of PS3 users who don't use home (after several mind numbingly boring tries) would appreciate it more.

  • JamieR #22 9 months ago

    I think this is a good move and shows the recognise that home has its faults but will shall see

  • Lucodeath #23 9 months ago

    Ive used home 3 times an the last time was accidental, had to wait 15 mins for updates b4 I could quit it. Far to slow to be useful at the mo.

  • Farzlepot #24 9 months ago

    I've booted up Home a couple of times. I've watched a couple of game trailers, got into a game of bowling, and a couple of the mini-games on there the last time I logged in were cool enough. But it's never really drawn me into it, and I've never really seen the advantage of Home over, say, watching game trailers on YouTube, or playing actual games that don't take fifteen minutes to load up and require you to queue to access them.

    Am I alone in this? Am I missing something in Home that makes it so worthy of Sony's attention?

  • BIGJOEJGDE #25 9 months ago

    Will we finally get the Trophy room?