PlayStation Home Comments by Oli Welsh

apologie: sony does it again-best piece of software ever,i told you it would be amazing

@Chufty: Home is a virtual environment that has the MASSIVE benefit that anyone with a PS3 has access to it. Currently it doesn't really do anything because it's not supposed to do anything. It's a platform for commercial endeavours and these will come with time. In years to come it will be taken for granted and will have a strong commercial presence.

Uh, there's a problem with this logic. Yes, everyone with a PS3 (and a network connection) has access to home but that doesn't mean that everyone will use it... If all it is is a platform for commercial endevaours (i.e. advertising and promotional materials) then why would anyone go there? There's gotta be some point, some hook and let's be honest here, if the first impression of the majority comes from this build most will immediately be dismissing it and either deleting home or just not bothering with it. If the user base stays away then why are companies going to pay Sony to advertise their products within Home? Why would developers invest time and resources into building areas for specific games if the majority of customers just launch everything from the XMB?

Let's be honest here, Home has been hyped to the nth degree by Sony since they announced it last year. They've released it in its current state and the response is negative mainly because they haven't got it right. Do you REALLY think that the majority of gamers - a bunch not naturally inclined towards patience at the best of times - are going to wait another six months, a year, two years or more for Sony to get it right? Or will they just head off for the next big thing? For that matter, Home was being positioned as the PS3's answer to NXE... if you're an on-line gamer looking at a console who wants a rich clan / friend experience Home has failed to deliver on an epic scale and the 360 is suddenly a long way ahead with the PS3 looking like it's struggling to catch up after blowing its best shot.

@sifujames

It just seems like a really longwinded way to do the same basic things that can be achieved via MySpace/Facebook (sharing things with friends etc).

----

One could say the same about email and text vs phone calls though.

And if/when Home really gets going, it'll be able to do a lot more. Imagine creating your own appartment and furnishing it with cool stuff you've won via various games, or having a trophy room with video re-runs of your best lap times in a racing game or a compliation of your best headshots in an FPS. It's that sort of stuff you can't do yet in any medium that they're looking at here.

I appreciate what you're saying and I'm sure it needs work, but remember how online used to be before embedded videos? Or even images? Isn't Home the same kind of thing?

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. I'm not saying IT'S TEH FUTARE OF TEH INTARNET but it's certainly an interesting experiment and I wouldn't pooh-pooh it just yet.

Totally agree with the article except for one thing, voice comm's. I heard an Aussie bloke chatting away earlier clear as a whistle. I guess it just depends on each persons individual connection, server load etc.

"And if/when Home really gets going, it'll be able to do a lot more. Imagine creating your own appartment and furnishing it with cool stuff you've won via various games, or having a trophy room with video re-runs of your best lap times in a racing game or a compliation of your best headshots in an FPS. It's that sort of stuff you can't do yet in any medium that they're looking at here."

Cant see the attraction of having fancy virtual appartments myself,wreaks of SAD imo. To me its a novelty that will wear off before even this weekend is over-im sure if you sit and think about it you'll maybe agree. Scandalous to think of what kind of money was spent on this thing as basically a fancy of way of getting revenue out of people as psn is 'free'.

Be interesting to see how some game developers react to the lets face it poor reception it has received after only its first day-sony really should have got it in better shape in order for it to be taken seriously for companies to pour money into advertising on there.Dangerous move by sony,very dangerous imo.

If I'm being honest, and without jumping on a bandwagon - Home is terrible.

I spent several hours on it last night, and at every turn I just couldn't believe what Sony have done;

- There is minimal clothing and customisation for it. The facial detail is great (although admittedly I got bored and skipped most of it), but there is nothing to make your character 'unique'. And if Sony think I'm paying to do that, good luck.

- You have to queue for all of the games, and not via a noticeboard or anything - you must physically queue and it becomes a 'first to mash the 'X' button' competition. Rubbish.

- The film trailers take ages to load (even though I have a fast connection), and when they eventually do the quality is terrible.

- I have to pay for pretty much everything in my house. Again, no thanks. Just like I'm not going to pay £3.99 for a LBP day one T-shirt. A 'mug' is something I'm not.

- It's a sausage fest. Obvious, really, but everywhere you look is another male. Although if there is a big crowd of men, 10 times out of 10 there will be a female in the middle! Spending time in an online gay bar really isn't my thing, but thanks.

The fact of the matter is, Home is not 'Beta'. Beta is when a title is feature complete with only bugs left to fix, and with Home, this simply isn't the case. It is obvious that the 'Beta' tag has just been thrown on there to just get the "damn thing" out the door, it is very clear that Sony have simply had enough of it. If Home really is feature complete then Sony should be worried. Very worried.

I hope that in 2009, Sony will finally make some great titles - give meaning to my £300 dust collector. To think of the amount of money that has been thrown into 'Home', it just seems like such a waste. All of those finances and resources could have created something truly great, truly next-gen. Instead, they've released a broken waste of space, and if my real home was like that, I wouldn't want to live there.

Team Ico - the creators of the title to save the PS3? I hope so. Home certainly isn't.

@mclovin69

My what an original screen name...Where did you think that up from?

"Imagine creating your own appartment and furnishing it with cool stuff you've won via various games, or having a trophy room with video re-runs of your best lap times in a racing game or a compliation of your best headshots in an FPS."

Why would anyone ever want to do that? Come over to mine and see my collection of headshots.... Really scary!

"Home optimises Sony this gen

They just don't know what they are doing, they thought they could dictate what people want to them, thats what 100m ps2 units does to you I guess."

Agree totally.

nowt wrong with a bit of repetition (especially as were talking thick skulls here)...
360 fans who've never 'used' the application,but instead form their own judgements via FUD; Could you please bugger off!

here's a quickie..ITS BEEN OUT FOR ONE DAY! yep, just one day, isn't it blatantly obvious that they (Sony) are still stress testing the servers? Alot of the content is coming next week, and I'm sure that (as somebody helpfully pointed out before) with Sony's track record of updates, it will indeed grow...there's nothing wrong with a bot of cynicism, but this hatred (of a BETA) is downright stupid.
Granted there are micro-transactions, but it is possible to win alot of stuff (play the arcade games) and I'm sure in the future this will expand (if you play namco arcade beta from japan, you can win an arcade cabinet, as well as pacman caps etc), from what i hear, from time to time the whole layout will have special themes (there was talk of a chimerean invasion (R2) on the home square, with pods stuck in the middle and everything being a bit more post apocalyptic, or maybe snow and decorations for Xmas...there's a lot to think about there, and as i pointed out before,its been out a day.
But hey if its hyperbole and FUD that you crave and not imagination, keep reading cynical, sceptical 'pieces' from sites such as this...
seedaripper1973

why do i care what my username is on a message board?-surely theres much more important things in the world to think about harder eg cheerios or crunchy nut cornflakes this morning for breakfast
much more thought required than a feking username on the internet you weirdo ;-)

@mclovin69

Cheerios?? ah, so you are 14 then...bless, maybe one day you'll live up to your screen name.

(so theres not an ounce of originality/personality in you then) ;)

360 fans who've never 'used' the application,but instead form their own judgements via FUD; Could you please bugger off!

Could YOU please bugger off? Your witless comment was shit the first time you posted it, we definitely didn't need it cut and pasted.

calling someone 14 on a gaming forum,and you have the cheek to call me unoriginal LOL

Im sorry i made fun of Home,i wasnt aware of the type of person it was marketed at.now i do ;-)

back in your cage you bad tempered little git :-)

@ Rev. Stuart Campbell

hit a nerve did i??? (i assume my point was geared towards yourself then)

'anxiousness'? tut

Have you ever been to a building site, seen a few holes in the ground with some iron and concrete foundations thrown in for good measure, and said "LOL this building is shit, what a flop!!1"?

Some of you should also learn the meaning of 'alpha' and 'beta'. The backend is feature-complete for its first release, because it works as intended (on a technical level), therefore it is not an alpha. Obviously more end-user features will be added but that doesn't mean it's not a beta. It's a piece of software with open-ended development, so it will never be 'end-user feature complete' until the day it closes down for good.

Stop using shit metaphors and analogies. Does your brain work. You sound inbred if you think what you just said has any relevance to a software beta. A software Beta is to test an almost finished build except for a very few bugs that may or may not need ironing out. You don't release an unfinished product and then just keep adding to it. Because that is not really what a beta is.

@ iokthemonkey

Good points, and the idea of being able to seamlessly share clips from games like you've mentioned is pretty cool. But why the need to have an avatar that you control and have to walk over to people's houses to go and see their stuff? Isn't it quicker to just go to that person's page/site with one click? That's what puzzles me. Sure the avatar allows for personalisation etc, but I don't understand the appeal of having to make your character walk over to a location to see something or do something that could just as easily be shared through a more conventional web style interface (or does Home offer public transport or teleportation to make getting around quicker?). I know in games we run around doing stuff, but Home isn't a game in of itself, it's social networking/interaction using the now familiar interface of 3rd person games

I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I guess fundamentally it's something that I'll never have interest in, whereas some people will lap it up.

hold up, hold up, HOLD UP!

did somebody just slag off the consumption of CHEERIOS, the greatest breakfast serial of our time? WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU???

erm, on topic, i tried to get onto home last night but couldnt for errors, gave up after a couple of times, tried this morning, couldnt get on and gave up after one try. tried this afternoon and got on and made a character, home square or whatever it is called wouldnt download so i turned it off. after reading about all of the advertisements and charges etc, i don't think i can be arsed with this. from the word go i don't think i have been so instantly turned off by a piece of software since the last time i saw a ubisoft logo.

"Have you ever been to a building site, seen a few holes in the ground with some iron and concrete foundations thrown in for good measure, and said "LOL this building is shit, what a flop!!1"? "

People don't generally move into buildings until they're finished though.

So this is the definitive, never-to-be-added-to-or-revised Eurogamer review of Home then?

Must be true....

It's Home's 'realistic muted style' that's exactly what is so off-putting about it.

It SHOULD have been Little Big Planet. I'd rather be a Sack person than some ugly Second-Life/Sims looking thing.

When will games companies learn? That kind of artwork has ALWAYS looked waxy and horrible.

i'd say whether i like it or not - but i can;t connect to it :(. Doesn't sound like i'm missing much tho!!!!

Hmm, EG doesn't like it. I'm starting to doubt my own disinterest...

I still can't get into it.

Try again tomorrow again.. very impressive start this. Two nights. no access.

I always wanted to shuffle around controlling some horror spawned from the uncanny valley. Its great fun taking said homunculus and then parking it next to the first female avatar you see, along with 1300 other zombie rejects and then spammin "WER R U? R U GRLZ??>" along with the rest of the brain dead. Ah relaxing.

I hate being drawn into forum debates, but oh well;

@ seedaripper

First impressions are everything. If an application like 'Home' doesn't grab you within the first 10 minutes, there's a problem. If it doesn't grab you with in the first hour, there is some serious trouble.

My first impressions of Home where, if you read my post, terrible. Granted, it's just my opinion, but i'm still a consumer that is now put-off from spending time and money on Home. As a result, anything they do to it from now on will immediately remind me of my first experience. Those thoughts are hard to shake off. Yes, I will give it another chance, but it's going to take a LOT of work to make 'Home' a success. Sony seem like they are in it for the long run though, so for those that like 'Home' already - "Great!", but for those off us that would rather have real games from Sony as a developer, especially if you've had a Sony console since the birth of the PlayStation, it's gutting to see something like 'Home' that has obviously taken a lot of Sony's development money, money which could have been pumped into real 'next-generation' software - and most crucially, system sellers.

And for those that think that this is a 'Beta' - if it really is a Beta then that's very bad news, for us the consumer and Sony. The LBP beta was a real beta. It had all the functionality of the final game, just with a fair amount of bugs. That is what being at Beta is. Creating something, and then sticking a Beta tag on it does not make it a beta. End of.

Sony should have left this bun in the oven untl it was ready to wow us, instead they've given off some very bad first impressions which *could* damage Home and Sony's reputation in the long-term.

Showrooms? Publishers buying space there for games? What are Sony trying to do here?

It seems as though they have this vision from something out of Buck Rogers. You jack into some virtual environment, where you can walk around and chat, and do all sorts of other things.

It may not be Buck Rogers where I this but we've all seen it somewhere. And it looks shit even with some hollywood mega-budget. I'd rather send someone I got on with an invite, rather than have people forced upon you.

Edit : When is this due to go Live by the way. Soon? Much as I hate to say it but if it's not too far off, the quality of the beta is usually not THAT much better than final product.

I guess most games would like

a) easy access to their games (and not have to walk around to get to it)
b) see what their mates are up to and what they are playing. And if they want to...Jump In (sorry, but it's quite catchy).
c) hot coffee

it seems as though a) and b) are becoming more difficult. If someone hacked it so you could do c) the servers would come crashing down.

I've not tried this. But the people who have - help or hinderance? And more importantly, was there any screen tearing ;-)

Penny Arcade are highly accurate on the Home experience I see :)

Sony should have left this bun in the oven untl it was ready to wow us, instead they've given off some very bad first impressions which *could* damage Home and Sony's reputation in the long-term.

That's pretty much how I see it.

@Teddii
I respect your opinion, mainly due to the fact that at least you've tried it...fair shout it isn't 'TEH GREATIZZT EVAA!1' , but as i pointed out it is new, again your right first impressions do make a difference (how many times have we been wrong on judging a book via its cover though) but it must of had some effect as your willing to give it another try..also sony arnt 'wasting' money on this project, (they're counting on getting a bit of lost monies back via advertising/microtransactions, thus in turn keeping the network free) when it could be spent elsewhere, the PlayStation brand pumps shed loads of money/expertise/help into its 1st and second party devs (more than any other console manufacturer) so, should they just give up on home (a means of funding the network) in favour of even MORE devs?

Some of these posts are so funny! When will people realise that home and the new xbox experience are not the same thing. One is an online gaming virtual area where gamers have the choice to pay for things and chat etc. The other is a basic front end system for gamers to do much the same, all these opinions are subjective. Home is free and i think a brave step which is trying to build an online community and despite the fact that it is not without flaws it is free and has some nice touches. To all the fanboys for whatever colours you fly get all 3 machines and then Judge. As it stands up till now the xbox is the better gaming platform and the ps3 is a great media centre, but come feb with killzone 2, heavy rain white knight story who knows??.

@Chufty - Have you ever been to a building site, seen a few holes in the ground with some iron and concrete foundations thrown in for good measure, and said "LOL this building is shit, what a flop!!1"?

But that's not what Sony are doing here is it? We've had the artists rendering of the finished product and it got us interested. We know people that live close enough to view the show house and they've been fairly positive - all the fixtures and fittings seem to work and the build quality was decent. They've declared the site open, we've come to move in and from the outside it looks like the picture in the brochure. Sadly when we get through the front door we're finding that behind the front wall there's just a building site with a few holes in the ground and exposed foundations....

@seedaripper - here's a quickie..ITS BEEN OUT FOR ONE DAY!

No, it hasn't. It's been in closed beta for over a year. It was originally supposed to be out over a year ago. They've had time to get functionality in that was promised back in 2007. They've had time to get the basics right. They've utterly failed on both of these counts. The fact is, regardless of all this BS about it being a Beta product, they're releasing a piece of software to the entire user base and it IS going to be treated as a finished product, at least with regards to functionality. They've made a decision to cripple the number of items avilable at launch to try and get more money from the service (which is another point, if it's Beta software, and the ONLY difference between this and the closed Beta is that this is available to everyone... why take out the free clothes etc that were in the closed version?). As for the 'content' that's coming next week... how much of it is actually free? How much of it is actually going to make the slightest bit of difference to the complaints that are being made?

Sony have chosen to go a certain way with this and it's clear, even at this early stage, that it's a way which is generating a lot of resistance and, yes, resentment in the user community. I've had a PS3 for a while now and was looking forward to seeing how this all worked out but... well, let me put it this way. If Sony stick to their guns and charge you £4 to setup a club room and then a monthly charge on top of, let's say, £2... that's £28 a year which is almost exactly what you'd pay for a year of Xbox Live access. Suddenly one of the major plus points of the PS3 is gone because there's no way Sony are gonna deliver the same functionality outside of Home or they'd be killing their own revenue stream.

For me it boils down to this.

Why the fuck would you spend real money in a virtual world when you could buy a pint for the price of a few items of generic virtual clothing?

the fuck are they thinking?

Or a virtual Gap advert without the women.

Hmm, with the Xbox they keep doing things better and better, the new interface and features they've added are really useful and most importantly work seamlessly and effectively. Sony spends a ludicrous amount of money and time on creating this, what sounds like a kind of hell of being stuck in IKEA or an arts college for too long... AND then they fail to make it work very well and miss on all the fundamentals.

Sony are really doing my head in these days, and makes me more determined to buy a proper full HD TV and dedicated Blu-Ray player over getting a PS3 (and yes, I'm aware that'll be about 3 times the price of just getting a PS3 which I could use now). To put Sony's mind at rest tho it will be a Bravia TV :p

Sony's like the dominant charmer bully jock who's now piling on the pounds while everyone else has realised they're a cock too. Sony's becoming a loser, but still has fans that seem a bit blind. Woop

Do you think they'll have christmas sales on the furniture and clothes ? ;-)

This article pretty much sums it up for me. I probably spent longer trying to get into Home (what with all the time outs) than I did actually "playing" around in it. I made a poor representation of myself as an avatar (my Mii is a better likeness) and tried a game of bowling against some random person (which I won easily - and, incidentally, didn't have to queue for at all), then I visited the mall and realised everything costs real money, so I didn't buy anything, and then I quit.

I can't say I'm particularly bothered about going back to it. I'd really rather play some games to be honest...

Yes, it's a beta and as a virtual world it looked nice and all that, but unless Sony are going to implement a compelling reason to use it, it's a waste of my gaming time.

SONY EPIC FAIL!

The article completely echoes my own feelings of home based on a couple of hours play. It just feels lifeless, cumbersome, and, ultimately, pointless. Why wander around a cinema loading videos when I could look on a website? Why spend money on uninteresting avatar clothing when theres nothing I can do with the avatar anyway?

In fact, why bother to boot the damn thing up in the first place, when I can access all the interesting content in there much more quickly and conveniently by looking on the playstation store, firing up the xbox marketplace, or opening up firefox and browsing the web. If I really want to chat to someone, I can use a messenger program, or meet new virtual people somewhere else. Im certainly not going to tit about in a faux-realist world dancing lifelessly.

Yeah, the avatar stuff is really hard to get something looking like you. It takes ages, and I gave up and went with 'generic cunt' instead of me.

NXE was easy, and I do look odd but accurate, and apparently like Dave Mustaine. Fuuucccckkk.

I'm disappointed. I have a 360 which I enjoy and I like my PS3 and I love the blu-ray movie angle, and the games are good, but the fuck they try and make Home the main interface at the expense of the standard thing. i hope they sacked the cunts who worked on it because they are piss poor at what they created.

*sigh*

conform to the norm then..im off

I like the way they said "But charging for social features - especially charging fees on top of one-off payments - is a schoolboy error." whilst referring to Sony, can nobody else see that this is Xbox Live's exact model??

The difference is that at least with Xbox Live Gold, everything is included. With this, every little thing you want to do is charged for.

Not necessarily defending Live Gold, just saying that's how it is.

Wow. Just Wow.

First - regarding the article - I'd like to say that indeed, those photos aren't currently in Home [Beta], but they may very well be in Home sans the [Beta]. So, snide comments at an unreleased product - faut le faire.

There ends the negativity. I've entered Home Beta for about an hour. And as the first sentence implies, I'm amazed. The Home project started at the beginning of 2005, it was announced - if I recall correctly - by Phil Harrison in march 2007 and now, 1.75 years later, I'm looking at a version which has no deeper functionality when compared to that old one? So why the 1.75 years delay?

In fact, it's even worse than the 2007 version, because that one had a virtual PSP when pressing Start and thus gave a more coherent Sony feeling. I understand that the PS3's XMB eliminated the need for the vPSP's XMB, but: why not simply keep the vPSP image for coherence? Now, you have this sterile, I dunno, experimental-uninspired-and-ultimately-rejected smartphone design... I suspect the vPSP was removed for a reason other than the XMB.

Anyway, Sterile. I think that word sums Home Beta up nicely. It's all so very clean and bright, and everything looks the same, especially the people. While the character editor gives you this illusion that you're creating a unique face, the sterile visuals of Home Beta forces you to look (most of the time) at your character's head (and the heads of the other characters) from a distance. This results in them looking the same. Set wrinkles to max? Don't worry, Home Beta's patented camera system ensures you'll barely ever see them.

And Teddii, while I agree it's a man fest right now (welcome to the video gamer majority), this will undoubtedly change. Everyone
usually takes their first steps in something like this as a character which resembles them somewhat. Once that's over, craziness sets in. However, given the limits of the character creation system, it's going to take some effort. And money. Which the sane will never ever ever spend on virtual goods.

I've read some comments where people complain about head sets and microphones? Why on Earth would you need those? To hear some giggling kids doing their first baby steps in embarassed trash talking? I watched a few trailers in the theatres and every time, some giggly-wigglies had a ball, blurting out semi-audible lines intertwined with generous use of the terms "wanker" or "tosser" in the Queen's finest dialects. Or - always a classic - "Is anyone there? Huhhuhhhuuurrrr..."

I've also read some comments regarding the "purpose" of Home. From what I understand, it is supposed to be a virtual/visual representation of your PS3 and the way it is connected to the other PS3s. The shopping mall is the PS Store (with extended stores suited to the environment), The theatre is basically previews/trailer part of the PS Store, your apartment represents your PS3 and multimedia collection, the bowling alley represents, umm, Start > All Programs > Games > Internet Reversi and the Home Square ties everything together. In a sense, it's a visual 3D OS of the PS3, which may make navigation easier for some, and much much harder for others.

The only moments I enjoyed - and in this, Home Beta excels - is sitting down in a nice spot, spinning the camera and observing the happenings from a distance (Ooh look, he's being raped from behind, and why are those Zombies closing in on that girl character?). It's so sterile that you can get rather Zen in it actually, simply because the sterility clears away any secondary distractions which allows you to focus...

In my opinion, the conclusion is: the product labeled Home Beta = Massive Fail in its current state; it devolved, even, from the march 2007 version. Maybe things will get better, but this is not a good way to start.

On the upside, I saw an ad for LocoRoco 2. Awesome. Didn't know about it until now. Will be getting it. And maybe Watchmen could be nice. Will first be getting the Dark Knight Blu-Ray though. Well crafted movie, that.

EDIT: Thanks Beano

i've only had time for a brief look at home, but so far i like what i've seen. Can see people who live in rented house shares in real life liking having a space that the can decorate as they wish even if it is only virtual, and compair to the shitty games people seem all to happy to play on facebook the home mini games seem like AAA blockbusters.

Home is a creation for the facebook - iPod generation and they'll probably lap it up in spaces once the momentum gets going. But at the same time it does offer the hardcore a nice distraction for when your not sure what you want to play, or just want to chill between bouts of resistance and motorstorm.

can possibly see some potential in regards to didicated game spaces like warhawk or motorstorm or massive live events of some sort.
But right now? ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

good thing u dont have to pay for that rubbish

WTF?
RedBull is in Home BETA, YES!!!

I can't really say my brief experience with Home last night was overwhelmingly positive either - although admittedly I knew well enough in advance that I probably fall far outside the target group as I'm rather anti-social to say the least, offline and online.
Hell, I wouldn't even know my PS3 had a "friends list" if I hadn't read about it somewhere :). I do however on occasion enjoy some anonymous multiplayer murdering in CoD etc., and I have spent a few months here and there over the years in various MMORPGs - playing solo 99% of the time.

What surprised me the most was just how very little content the current version of Home has. Yes, I'm well aware of the "it's a beta!" thing, but it's been in closed beta for how long?
Unless they've got another 10-15 areas - or extensions to current areas - already completed, I really can't fathom what they've been spending all that development time doing. Particularly since the actual underlying features and interface aren't exactly mind blowing either, quite the opposite in fact, as this Eurogamer article also points out.

But hell, I even went ahead and bought an extra shirt for my avatar. I guess I'll take a closer look at it the next time I log in - which I imagine could be as soon as a few months from now :p.