PlayStation Home Comments by Dan Whitehead

As other posters have commented, this preview was a mixed bag. Starts off ok, points out some really dull stuff all the way through, then ends on a high. Weird.

Cast your mind back to Killzone, now tell me you actually think Killzone 2 will be better than GoW2. Killzone scored 1 higher than Haze on this site. Did you like Haze too?

You are right, it's all subjective. But from the looks and sounds of it, Home would appear to be a Sims clone with all the gameplay and fun taken out.

I think the key to this preview is that interacting with other people always elevates the experience. There's loads of average games which still become great fun in multiplayer, whether locally or online. So while it does just sound like Home is just a glorified chat room with adverts, that's actully enough to make it compelling.

I thought Killzone was worse than Halo, I also think that Killzone 2 looks absolutely fantastic and its reassuring to read about the online support. I'll judge it when it comes out rather than looking at past iterations for a benchmark, its hardly the same game with a higher poly count skin.

Article opens my mind to some more positive possibilites of Home, leaving less judgemental against it than before.

As other posters have commented, this preview was a mixed bag. Starts off ok, points out some really dull stuff all the way through, then ends on a high.
He points out the good and bad, like any good reviewer, then goes on to leave an overall impression. Which is that he is 'very impressed'. Or do I need to put my xbox specs on and read it again?

Never played Killzone so I can't comment, the general impression of its sequel is however very good on numerous sites. We will have to wait and see if it is better than GOW2. GOW absolutely rocked by the way (as did Bioshock), I cant believe neither of them didnt sell more than average game-on-ified, Halo 3 (what a limitless advertising budget will do I suppose).

Haze was not great, distinctly average in fact. Drop in 4 player co-op being its only redeeming feature.

Home being like Sims isn't really an insult, Sims is one of the best selling games of all time. Over 100 million I think by last count. Add into that social networking, ability to strategise with your clan in a sandbox, watch films together (virtually) and Sony looks like it is on to a winner.

I am a confirmed X360 owner... and PS3... and Wii...

Just to answer earlier post re why 90 percent of comments from the 'outsiders'!

Home does have it potential and can see that it can work well but cant see myself arsed wading round the scenery before launching a game or movies! That is a long way to go about to get to the gaming meats to satisfy my cravings! Instead the real purpose/use would be more as a community thing, where you can hang out and mess around with your avatar/room and play a casual group games.

I can certainly see me launching games such as Buzz via Home to play off against people, but not too sure about MGO, Killzone 2 or Resistance 2 as would already have their own effective lobbies!

Yet to see how after a period of novelty have worn off, what PS3 owners will be using Home mostly for, I cannot see this edging out the more practical and ease of using PSN and XMB. Still I am not much of a Animal Crossing/Sim player and these games sell very well and thus would certainly appeal more to that sort of audience?

Can certainly suprise me and become an essential feature and a system seller, and leaving me isolated as an ignored and distated wino lying on the bench in middle of the plaza at Home!

/Mmm ponders if Sony would allow me to become a Wino in Home and harrass ladies for a peek?!

Interesting how everyone of you dunces assumes that HOME will be free.

mmm..let's see, it's obviously costing Sony a fortune and one can still play online and game without it, which we do anyway. So it's obviously going to be an OPTIONAL download. And you all think this HOME download that's cost millions to develop will be handed out free?

And don't say 'Sony says it's free, so it's free'. Sony is a serial promise-breaker and isnt going to roll this out without some immediate cash coming back. And fast.

Sony, Like MS, make a loss on the hardware, and recoup on the software. Why on heaven and earth does everyone assume HOME will be free???? Like Xbox Live is??

I reckon £19.99 a year subscription - minimum.

@Sulphur_Man

Its going to be paid for by people buying things for their virtual space (why anyone would do this is beyond me, but they do) also by un-obtrusive advertisements. Like a company logo on a poster or a wall etc.

Interesting how everyone of you dunces assumes that HOME will be free.

interesting that you never even thought of adverts/microtransactions before accusing the rest of the world of being dunces...

..... nnnnnnnngh.

To think that Home was one of the things which made me consider a PS3 in the first place, and yet it's hardly moved on at all. After MS' unveiling of the dash revamp (I FUCKING HATE THOSE AVATARS) a lot of the features will provide some of the 'upgrades' Home vaunted over a year ago, and what's more, probably arrive sooner too.

Avatars are gimmicks but Home just takes that concept up to 11.

DO NOT WANT (apart from the virtual apartment, that'll be a bit of fun)

I agree with mcbi4kh2 here (shock!) I can't see Sony charging for Home, they will make cash from idiots buying crappy little trinkets to go in their crappy little homes.

Now, back to disagreeing with mcbi4kh2 :-)

When I compared it to the sims, I did say it was like the sims with all the fun taken out, so not really a great thing to be compared to.
And I don't get what you mean by watching a movie together, you all meet up in a virtual cinema and watch some little screen on your TV? Or it goes fullscreen but you can talk to your mates? So you have to sit with a headset on so people can interrupt the movie with chit-chat. That sounds rubbish! I don't see how it'll offer any more to your clan than a in-game lobby either.

Being a wino on the park bench sounds fun though, can you throw up on cue?

And back to agreeing..

Yes GoW and Bioshock was better than the distinctly average Halo3, if ever there was a EG score I disagree with more it was that one. I'm currently finding MGS4 so much better than the coma inducing Halo3. But that's fuel for another fire...

Anyway, looks like you want Home and I can't see any merits in it whatsoever, we'll just have to wait and see I suppose, maybe Sony will surprise me....

What I mean by watching something together is that if I had some .avi's on my PS3, I could invite people into my apartment and stream them what I have if they are looking at the TV in my apartment.
I remember reading that a while ago somewhere, hopefully it will still happen. I have a long distance relationship so it would be nice to watch something like that 'together'.

To be honest Sims bores the shit out of me aswell, the only features I want from this are the afformentioned video feature, facebook integration(which hopefully will happen) and the clan meetings in Warhawk (there is a scale model of the map on a table and you can move things around to tell your clan where to go etc).
Read this http://kotaku.com/361562/how-warhawk-mak... offers far, far more than a lobby.

I own a PS3, but I just really don't see the point of Home. I literally do not understand why anyone would want to use it.

I've no interest in this shit whatsoever.
I'd rather they concentrated on making games.

Sounds amazing! I want :)

this appeals to me about as much as sandpapering my scrotum and then placing my bleeding scrotum in a bag of salt

Home looks Painful to use and Pointless. I'd rather scrape my eye across a brick.

Why are all you geniuses posting if you don't like it and have nothing else relevant to say?

I must have been the last person to ignore JTOOL...

Oh well...

I honestly don't know who's more casual- PS3 owners or Wii owners. I don't know why MS wants to attract such an idiotic audience.

@JSPOOLE

....cause they spend their money too, you idiot!
Every dollar/euro adds up.

No, I haven't done it yet, SeesThroughAll ;)

JSPOOLE to-do list:

(1) Face the nearest brick wall.
(2) Back up around, oh, fifty metres.
(3) Put head down.
(4) Sprint.

Sounds OK to me. I'm still a little on the fence and put off by the idea of micropayments, but I like Facebook and I can see me whittling away the hours just goofing around in Home. If you can buy a pirate costume I will never leave.

Bertie "If you can buy a pirate costume I will never leave" LOL

Do they have pirate memory games as well??

JSPOOLE is the most repetitious broken record on this damn site.

@JSPOOLE

My ignore list is empty, as I am always up for a debate, or at the very least a shit slinging match, and while I cannot argue with your Sony facts (and they damn well are facts), I'd rather have the morons and n00bs and gamer pricks have the options available to them to flood the Sony and Nintendo spaces rather than the space I'm on. Choice is after all the cornerstone of freedom, and the fact that MS are constantly fighting the empty promises of Sony's vapourware has forced them into creating the best hardcore gamers machine with the right software to match. if Sony hadn't bullshitted all the time, our system of choice may well have taken the easy lazy approach and coasted by on the bare minimum.

So really Microsoft should be thanking Sony for the approach they took, for forcing them to step up their game. I mean as opposed to Home, not only are MS bringing us some decent games, but they are coming out this year. i know which i'd rather have.

what we should really be worried about is this casual gamer crowd, as MS sets its sights on getting Nintendo's fanbase, of essentially non gamers. that could be disastrous if they forget about their core fanbase in favour of the grandma's and kiddywinks and the kinds of vapid morons that love to spend micro transactions on trinkets for useless avatars.

that and the ever present RROD of course.

why are the gaming corps catering for the gay gamer??

@ JSPOOLE

Seriously, if we were all the same then there would be only one console.

For people that own a PS3 like myself, it's all about personal choice, and i dont really see how you have the right to accuse people on if they have made a good or bad decision.


Each to their own at the end of the day.

geez EG. your expectations were way high, this is a series of 3d chat lobbies nothing more... it's the community that make home fun. if your having fun just pratting about in an almost empty beta test, thats good yes? :) geez

"Margaret might know................... MARGARET!"

@JSPOOLE
dude i see you're point, and it is a valid one.
BUT i own a 360, a friend of mine ownes a PS3 and i do see value there.
the hardware...
i don't meen bloatwhere cell, no build quality is the deal breaker for most of my friends buying into ps3

the machine is silent, does not have disc read error's has a blue ray player, and is sexy looking.

this is where ms has done wrong. re-design the f*cking box and make it a quality peace of hardware.

the games are great though. i love the xbox games, and they do need to make live free. then.... ps3 fans would really be out of arguments.

@Confounder
man read the vs articles, why would you ever buy the ps3 version of any multi format game....

lol! JSPOOLE!

JSPOOLE!
He loves the PS3!
He goes in each thread,
That he can see!

@Confounder
but if you already own a battery recharger and rechargeble batterys and don't need wireless .....
but you have a valid point. online multiplayer should be free.

but you could also say, you would have to re-buy you're ps3 controllers for rumble. so please add euro 59 for ps3 ;p

we can continue this debate all day, but it will be pointless, so if you're happy with you're ps3, i'm happy for you :)

@Confounder
you use exactly the arguments my friends buying ps3 use.(and the ones i mentioned earlyer) 360 build quality. they are all valid arguments and if they apply for you, you've made the right choice.
i don't need wireless and the xbox is back in a cabinet under the telly, so for me i'm happy to.
i'm off doing the dishes :(

@JSPOOLE

I too am a former Sony acolyte, back in the days when they actually provided the best entertainment around, PSone and PS2 , but after my thumb wanted to fall off from cramp on the badly designed awkwardly positioned and wrong sided thumb stick slide switch thingy on the PSP, and looking at the sorry games catalogue i started to sense something was off within the company. cut a long story short, i did my research, looked everywhere i could on the internet and saw a big shakeup coming what with the delays, the promises, the CGI fake trailers being sold as in game and the exorbitant price. needless to say the actual results of the 360 converted me, and i felt the need to explain to my fellow gamers how i came to that position, lest they all fall for the lies, and the real gamers machine falls to the hype.

I was at a stage where i was vehemently defending the console of my choice, as you are now, but honestly mate, you are either preaching to the converted 360 masses, or hitting your head against a brick wall of the blind sony fanboys. you cant expect something as trivial as the 'truth' or 'facts' to turn the lemming faithful away from the edge.

Besides, MS are big enough and ugly enough to throw money at the system no matter what the whole planet thinks of it, and its not the early days where it could have gone either way, enough people have woken up to see the state of the industry for what it is, who is all talk, and who is making shit happen. MS are not going anywhere now, so we can sit back, relax and play games, laughing at the desperate fanbois who desperately try to bend the truth to fit their blinkered little reality tunnels.

Basically mate, you should relax. after looking at this years E3, i really can't see Sony being that big of a threat anymore, which is reflected in MS press conference. They obviously have their sights set on Ninty now, which is a whole other ball game.

Seriously you guys should just be quiet... its getting boring.

This topic is about Sony Home, not how crap you think the PS3 is... I love my PS3 and have no problems with people buying an Xbox... get over it, they are just stupid consoles.

As for home, Im not convinced it will be something that I want to use, Im not a big fan of online games, I mean I love Grid and that is easy enough to play online, why would i need an additional 200MB install and a large world to walk around in... but still Im sure some people will love it and it might pull in some other users.

walk around at home with no games to play or walk around in home with no games to play - This is Living

@confounder
Gran Turismo 5 is dated for 2010!!!! whipout has just been delayed AGAIN!
only the pay for demo for GT5 is available.... so please shut the... up.
i'm not a fanboy and usually don't get into this kind of stupid rants.
but you just keep on repeating yourself with the same bullshit arguments.
so this is my last offtopic post.

sorry all readers actually wanting to read about home.. i do appologise.

@confounded

No, i didn't imply MS were trustworthy, they are a huge multi national corporation and would like to set fire to babies and rape grannies if they could make an extra dollar just like any other multi national corporation, Sony included, or Sony especially depends on which side of the fence you are on.

You put words in my mouth in order to make a counter argument, because what you have to argue and make valid points with is so very sparse. bringing out the Vista guns just reeks of desperation, and i can't honestly comment on that, as i use an aged pc with XP and firefox in order to browse the web, and thats about it. I'm all about the GAMES, see, and that i can proffer up an honest opinion on (and would also be why i don't own a PS3 yet. i say yet, cause i never say never). oh and you do realise that MS were forced into different divisions, like a multi headed hydra, because of some monopoly laws right? the people that run the gaming section have little to do with the other stuff and vice versa.

I mentioned the RROD as one of the only things MS fans have to fear, and i acknowledge it as i have suffered 4 personally myself. its a big issue when i don't have an xbox to play on, but its out of sight out of mind when its working. I came up with a workaround for it however, unique only to myself. it was to collectively purchase 3 more 360's in order to play online matches with housemates, all in one room with regular LAN nights, in a sort of house clan. there has never been a stage where more than 2 have been broken at one time, thus i no longer have to worry about going without my fix. not an ideal solution, but its not an ideal world. go figure.

however, unlike Sony, MS may well be slow to act, but ultimately they did act. 3 year warranty, with money back to all those who had to pay in the first place, providing they kept receipts of course. its not an ideal solution to the problem, but we don't live in the aforementioned ideal world, and short of a fucking time machine to go back and fix it before it happened, I'm not sure how anyone would deal with it otherwise. if you recall every single xbox for a few months or longer, it looks terrible in the media, and on the internet, some people who won the RROD lottery and got a stable machine that didn't break, would voice their disapproval most loudly on every forum and message board the world over. still it would have been better than the solutions sony choose with the disc read error on the ps2, or every time an update bricks a console, or a game doesn't work when it should, or a small company demands payment for their vibration pad technology, or if a PSP screen has dead lines, which is to sweep it under the carpet.

and i would pass you the puke bucket, were it not already in use by you, being worn as a relatively attractive, if smelly hat.

At least Home doesn't have more Mii avatars...

on the topic of games

360 = the most games, higher scoring games in every genre and better third party games

ps3 = none of the above

whoa! the JSPOOLE "my opinion is fact" machine is really rocking now!

"Guess MS HAS to appeal to the idiot masses for them to keep up. It's a shame, I just hope you morons don't end up dumbing down the 360 like you have every other console you all happen to jump on the bandwagon for. "

The 360 could be dumbed-down more than it already is???

@Cumfounder

Difference being O wise one, all my house mates agreed that a house clan would be an excellent idea for games like battlefield etc, taking the social level to new heights within the house, giving a whole new dimension again to the games we were playing (4D gaming mayhap?) and from the basis of showing them game quality on one xbox, they decided to purchase their own machines. admittedly it was a hard sell at first with ums and ahhs, but the fact that we would never own four PS3's, let alone one of them, speaks volumes to the game selection and quality doesn't it?

and i have always been about the games you Sony Semen receptacle, you have always tried to put words into my mouth, cause Sony's sticking something else in yours.

and if you happened to be a millionaire i could easily see you spending you fortune on some magic beans, so long as they had SONY on the side eh?

i can't believe i share a hobby with you people.

Apologies for being off topic but Home still looks like it maybe of some entertainment. I digress.


JSPOOLE

I have a PS3, does that make me a "cockmuncher"?

Sad pathetic hate filled homophobe, probably due to his mother not hugging him enough and little latent homosexuality. Who actually cares WHAT you think or remembers when Eurogamer forums were free from this fanboi crap.

This is pretty vitriolic even for the average high profile comments thread. Somebody better nuke from orbit...

@dirigiblebill

To be fair, I see a lot of the hatred toward things like Home as fully justified.

We are mostly console gamers here, we buy consoles for games. Home is not a game, it's the antithesis of gaming. Sony wants the console market to move in the direction of non-gaming activities. They want to sell us a media hub with social networking and 'lifestyle applications', not a thoroughbred games machine.

All this wishy-washy non-gaming shit will be seen as a selling point by their competitors and what will happen next is their competitors will follow suit. That will dilute gaming as a whole. I dont want my gaming diluted, thanks.

Hmm I wish they stopped making this crap and just give me normal looking menus to communicate with friends and spend cash wasted on it to produce few good games (you can bet it costed more than developing cancelled Getaway 3 would).

So SONY i want more games not your no-life magnet crap.