PS Home downloaded 6.5m times Comments by Robert Purchese

and deleted 6million times probably...

or 10 people had to download it 650,000 times each before realising "Yes, thats IT - no it's not broken, that really is IT"

Monetize how I wonder? By subscriptions or advertising? And any news about when Europe will catch up with the rest of the world?

Home is cockslop

Everyones homes are going to be repossessed soon i heard.

Cyacomini - You can only download it once tard.

Santino - You been on home? Oh take it not as its always quite busy

I take Home for what it is a Networking application, a way to Network outside of a game. I mean when your playing a game your meeting new people, but who is to say that you will ever play with that person again? And your playing a game to play a game not meet new people

I have a few real life friends and my brothers who use Home so we can chat and descide what game we want to play (normaly TF2) but it gives us a chance to catch up or even go for a quick game of bowling or pool.

Game spaces est are nice to look at, but Im not to bothered. Its a nice little addition, and much better then Avatars which do what?

This will be quietly shut down in about 18 months I reckon.

Its extremely populated every time I log in, Im very surprised.

The malls & theater sections are too crowded.

I cant wait till they start fully integrating trophies.

mr_writer - Yes i have been on home before, it took an obscene amount of time to eventually get in without any errors. When i did get in however i was greeted with what can only be described as the worst and most pointless piece of software i have ever had the misfortune of using.

6.5 million downloads is a nice statistic. What are the statistics on the number of players that play it regularly, or even came back after the first time? I recall that 2nd Life once claimed 6 million users or something but an independent researcher then claimed that only a 10th of that came back after the first time.

I still can't be bothered really, not until there's a real reason to do so.

and deleted 6million times probably...

How original of you...

@mr_writer

Who's the tard that took my comment seriously ;)

Features needed to convince most PS3 gamers to use Home regularly:

-Improve loading speed, hugely.
-Full trophy integration
-100% game launching support

Home can really take off then.

@ Santino

So you had this bad experience, how many times?

Not having a go, but from the wording of your post it seems like you didn't really persevere with it. And if that's the case...

The point is, Home's (Beta) launch was so bad, I wonder how many people just didn't bother after the initial "ugh" reaction.

Its a shame really,as its a free service and entirely optional there's not a lot of reason to investigate how its developing (or not).

I downloaded it - it's SHIT.

No chance I'm buying anything as the 'service' stands at present, so they're lucky they're not expecting to profit.

Idiots.

This isn't a very useful statistics has pointed out many people deleted home after the download, specially if you have a 40GB PS3, I'd be curious to hear the amount of unique active users for the last 3 months or so.

@Xerx3s

We're at the point now where we're starting to see our active user base go up, and we're getting more people coming back than are leaving, so we're at the tipping point of where the platform starts to gain momentum.

I hope Home is a success (in terms of user numbers at least) as it's someone actually trying to do something new and different. It may not be the best thing ever, it may crash and burn, but at least they're innovating. For instance, I'm glad to see them doing micro transactions. As Peter Edward says in the interview, they're huge in Korea but historically shunned in the UK. Maybe Home will go some way to change attitudes, even if it just shows other people in the industry what does and doesn't work.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ho...

We had Star Trek uniforms that went on sale recently, and they were massively popular. We had entire spaces full of people wearing only Star Trek uniforms - that sort of thing gets people really excited.

Oh dear.

I downloaded Home on day one with very low expectations and, if anything, it failed to even live up to those. Home is overwhelmingly pointless and it astonishes me that it wasn't canned early in development, let alone take so long to actually arrive. Did nobody realise what they were creating was a steaming pile of donkey plop?

Loading time really have to be improved. I tried it during the beta, thought it was ok but not really for me.

I keep meaning to try it since the few home spaces were added but I can't be bothered with all the loading.
Nobody is going to fire up Home to chat with friends before launching a game together if the software itself takes longer to load than the game itself.

I use home regularly and really enjoy it.

The amount of bile spewed in its direction doesn't really surprise me (I accept that its not everyones cup of tea), but as a free, optional service, is there really much to complain about?

If you don't like it, don't use it.

As mentioned by others, there seems to be a healthy number of people using it - with spaces always bustling rather than being left as gleaming ghost towns, and I think as a whole it's developing nicely. Good on Sony for trying something different and, on the whole, pulling it off.

Oh - and Xi has been, in my opinion, a great success and something refreshingly different.

re. 'Nobody is going to fire up Home to chat with friends before launching a game together if the software itself takes longer to load than the game itself.'

I've never done this. But, there's been many occasions when I've bumped into people on my friends list, or random people and launched into an impromptu game of SFIV or RE5. I don't think Home is designed to be a replacement to pre-game lobbies - most games have these already, so there's no need. Home is an extra layer, an extra way of meeting people and enabling on the fly-match ups. Think of it as a garnish - a nice little bonus to add to the flavour - rather than the main course.

Recently booted this up again after faffing about on it for a bit during the Beta. It's still the same. Pointless. And so, so slow.

@chubster2010

It amazes me to read about people complaining about a free service they've tried for a few minutes.

Ill admit, I've only used it a few times, but the times Ive logged on it hasnt failed to impress me.

It can be improved on, and it will do (for free) over time.

Home is only going to get bigger.

Well a major reason for the bile directed towards Home is simply that it took a lot of resources that could have been better devoted elsewhere. Everyone I know who owns a PS3 sees it as irrelevant.

Whether it is free or not should have nothing do to whether it is ok to complain or not. If someone doesn't think it is good it isn't good, free or not.

I've yet to be convinced by Home but I admit it's been a while since I logged in. At the time I tried it it really felt pretty pointless to stand in line waiting to bowl, watching low-quality trailers or standing around the Red Bull area not having a clue how to actually do anything there (and at the time no-one else of the 50 or so standing there knew how to use it).

I might get back in any day now just to see what is happening but I simply think that's it's like Marmite; either you love it and really click with it or you just feel it is pointless and delete it.

To me personally it feels like a big overhead to use it to run into friends or launch games. I chat with friends on Live when I see them online or they come online while I am gaming or watching a movie and that feels a lot confortable than having to launch Home to go around and see if I can find some friends.

On the other hand I've never really understood the lure of Second Life and even though I used to visit virtual chat worlds waaaay back when I was younger I wouldn't do it today so maybe I'm just not the kind of person Home is aimed at.

I guess it will be interesting though to see what they will come up with in terms of features in the future.

cyacomini is was a retarded comment full stop even if you didnt mean it

mr_writer.. How can you only download it once? I downloaded it when I first got my PS3 but deleted it as I didn't see much point in it. Are you saying that I would now be unable to download it again?

Horribly slow a lot of the time and I DON'T WANT TO WALK AROUND SPACES FILLED UP WITH RANDOM INTERNET TARDS. If I could set it up to only accept friends, to have a unified space (instead of being dumped in a different 'world' from people I know, if they didn't charge for club spaces which were free (and crap) in the beta, and if it wasn't horribly clunky in almost every respect, or, indeed, actually had most of the features they promised to start with - video streaming, hanging up your own pictures in your apartment, trophy integration and rewards - then I might go back.

And having to queue up to play games might be realistic but IT ISN'T FUN.

Home is there for you to buy stuff. Bumping into friends and chatting with them is secondary, there's plenty of other ways of doing that and online games have their own lobbies. Sony aren't going to judge Home based on how many people chase around after female avatars, but on how many extras are sold for real world cash. And if the $$$ don't add up it will be canned, because while it's free for you it isn't free for Sony, and the only thing keeping it going right now is the embarassment factor of closing it.

@ Gurgeh

'And if the $$$ don't add up it will be canned'

Do you not think there is potential there for Sony to make money/enough money to keep Home running through advertising revenue?

Surely they would have thought about that before heading down the Home route. Propping up platforms such as this with revenue from micro-transactions is a largely unproven model (especially in the West), so I doubt very much that Sony would have taken a gamble on it with something as high-profile as Home.

If I'm wrong - and they have in fact taken a gamble on this model - then I'd say they're very naive if they think there are enough PS3 owners out there willing to spend £$£ on virtual T-shirts.*

*For the record, I've not spent a bean in Home, and in all honesty don't think I ever would.

i predict lots of people ragging on home in this thread...thing is, they don't seem to get it isn't for them, its for the younger and casual users.

It doesn't appeal to me one bit, but i understand that it has its audience and that that audience is probably the Majority and I being a hardcore gamer are in the minority, but that's ok. There are plenty of great games to keep me busy and no one from Sony HQ has come round to my house and force me at gunpoint to download HOME and use it, so it can plod on happily as far as i am concerned, while i blissfully play some great games :D

Ive recently went back when there was an exclusive video on Star Trek on there. The world seemed pretty populated. I think once there are more areas and more things to do, it wont be so bad. I also think if they do these themed videos/events then they will get more people to log back on.

Its not perfect or something that will hold my attention, but I think once they have more fun things to do like Redbull racing, then who can complain... its free :D

Out of the three consoles I only have a PS3 but I doubt whether I'll ever boot up Home again, it really seems to be a waste of storage space and my time.

I tend to login to Home every time I read somewhere that a new space has been added. At first I was very impressed by the RE5 space, but after a couple of months passed and EVERYTHING interactive that's supposed to be there is still coming soon, it seems like a complete waste of time. Even the Chris/Sheva figures I got for my private space, very "wow, nice" at first, are a waste with no way to admire them properly. So Capcom need to step up and actually _do_ something there.

On the other hand, the Resistance 2 space with its minigame (which I did not try, to many real games to play) looks more attractive, and quite a lot of people seem to be enjoying it.

Downloaded it, used it once, thought WTFITS, never touched it again.

Nailed in the first post, Santino.

I like the poker in the EA Arena area because I actually like poker. So technically I have a free poker game and its better than playing against a CPU opponent. Plus it was interesting to see that some of the stuff in the stores cost an almighty £0.00.

Have no idea why voice chat hasn't come back in though.

@Santino
It's a pity you didn't like Home; it appears its the only thing you have for your PS3.

Some people here seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between something being "SHIT" and something that they just don't like.

@chubster2010

They thought it through but Sony came up with Home when the PS3 was going to be a home entertainment centre rather than a games console. Home was where you'd buy your HD movies from, your PS3 and PSP games from, and everything from furniture to clothes. It's a 3d online shopping catalogue.

It was a gamble, but an easy sell to the bosses because of Second Life hype, and the general hatred of all things Internet at Sony HQ:

"“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet,” said Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive officer Michael Lynton. “Period". He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.”

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-me...

@Gurgeh
You're quoting the boss of a movie company moaning about the culture of piracy.

"You're quoting the boss of a movie company moaning about the culture of piracy."

The movie company had a big hand in the design of the PS3. It wasn't going to be just a games console, but the item that replaced your DVD player (no more pirated / copied DVDs) and PC (no more pirated music). It's not such a crazy idea when you look at the success of Apple with iTunes.

I've had my PS3 a few months now and got round to dl'ing Home a couple of weeks ago, it is absolutely dreadful in every respect apart from it's price. Aside from the fact it is utterly pointless and does nothing you would have expected it is so painfully slow and seems to crash randomly, I only lasted an hour or so before leaving and deleting it. I think Sony really f**cked Home up and what must have seemed like a great idea and Live! beater on paper turned out to be shite, why not just get rid of it and spend development time adding some key features to PSN like cross game group chat\invites and a party system?

@Gurgeh

'the general hatred of all things Internet at Sony HQ '

I don't think its fair to suggest that Sony 'hate the internet'. In fact, I'd say they're embracing the internet:
e.g.
- PSN is reportedly going to break-out beyond the PS3 and PSP to be accessible on other platforms,
- LBP and Killzone 2 have excellent internet intergration (KZ2 especially - the Battle Replays are excellent)
- a lot of PS3 games now feature direct youtube uploading
- the PS3 has a browser that supports things like iPlayer etc etc.
- Home itself has direct links to the internet (in fact, the internet is a core part of Xi)

I don't doubt the authenticity of your quote, I just can't see it being demonstrated in Sony's actions.

I like playing checkers on Home. Haven't been on it in a long while actually.

I like Home, although obviously there's room for improvement. But some problems (also mentioned here) are or have been addressed - for instance the 1.21 update improved load-times for spaces to about 15 seconds on average (only the home square seems to take a few seconds longer), and the Resistance 2 space mini-game not only has a leaderboard with friends-list support like the Red Bull Air Race game, but it also has no waiting lines - all 64 people in a space instance can play at once. You can game-launch warhawk, resistance 2 (you launch straight in to a party so you have all the regular options to stick together and stay in the game from there), resident evil 5 and street fighter 4. Chatting has recently improved too (although not perfect - on some screens the size is too small and I'm not sure if you can change that) - you can select chatlines and check a user's information from there, add them to a friendslist, etc. Personally I'm greatly looking forward to more games supporting game-launching, being able to chat and hang out in my personal space and then launch into different games and return back there with a group of friends, or meeting new people in specific game spaces, and talk to them a bit first finding out if their a bit serious about working together, have a headset etc. before launching into a game with them.

Heck, I like chess (have a perfect win record in Home, too bad there's no stat tracking ;) ), so for me that's been a lot of fun already, just playing chess with random strangers, but things are definitely moving somewhere.

And yes, Europe is still behind a fair bit on the spaces front (U.S. has Guitar Hero, Uncharted, Warhawk, etc.). But that's being adressed. Will be interesting to see if they do something in Home for E3.

Bigglesworth - just curious but how do you figure that? if it's from my games collection list or something i guess i should update that sometime soon. i don't own lots of ps3 games, just uncharted, street fighter 4, rock band, gt5p and a fair few psn games but i have played most of the big games/demos at some point and am looking forward to trico and gow3 and uncharted 2.

I hope i havent given the impression that i am anti ps3, as of my 3 consoles the 360 has gotten by far the least use since the NXE and just general lack of interest on my part. I do however stick with my stance that Home is among the worst and most useless pieces of software i have ever used.

Santino, you must have a Mac then.

its awful ............waste of HD space, it really is !

El-Dev - nope i've got a fairly capable pc to game on and 3ds max doesnt work on a mac, i dont understand why you would think that tho? lol