PS Home update adds photo-uploads

By Robert Purchese Published 4 June, 2009

First content-sharing feature so far.

Sony begins to realise the grand vision of PlayStation Home today as photo-sharing is added to the virtual world.

The US PlayStation blog describes this as "the most exciting news since open beta", as photos become the first user-created content within Home.

Photos can be uploaded from PS3 hard-drives and displayed in apartments to friends and visitors. Frames can be bought from the Mall area, plus there are stock photos on offer if you have none.

Sony also launches the Buzz! space for Home today, which manifests as a group quiz game where avatars must co-operate and stand on surfaces coinciding with specific answers.

We're promised the Mall will have Ghostbusters costumes as well as designer outfits and more SFIV clobber, too.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 3 years ago

    Sony seriously dont get online content.

  • zarglu #2 3 years ago

    Pay to allow people to download from YOUR hd, using YOUR bandwidth? ahahahah.

  • potatoes #3 3 years ago

    So you need to pay for a frame for each picture?! And I'm guessing that the larger frames cost more because of the extra materials and workmanship involved in their production.

    Just wow.

  • Bigglesworth #4 3 years ago

    @zarglu
    You honestly think this doesn't involve uploading the images to a central server??

  • insincere_dave #5 3 years ago

    "the most exciting news since open beta"

    Certainly no arguing with that statement!

  • Fidjit #6 3 years ago

    PS Home...whats it all about eh?

  • slayaz #7 3 years ago

    I had forgotten all about home.... what a crock.

    I wonder how many regular users there are other than the kiddy fiddlers grooming around the virtual pool table?

    Why would you pay to show virtual people your photos? Just email them.

  • dominalien #8 3 years ago

    If the experience with the E3 press conference is anything to go by, people in Europe will not be able to see the pictures at all for at least 24 hours, and when they finally do each person will see a different picture in the frame.

    Oh yeah, and paying for the picture frames is ridiculous.
    Edited by 1 at 04/06/09 @ 17:13

  • Jay-ITFC #9 3 years ago

    Wow Home gets more shit by the day doesn't it.

  • Bigglesworth #10 3 years ago

    This is quality - so far every single commenter on this piece, other than myself and the two people keeping shtum, are proudly flying the Xbox flag from their rooftops. Sad.

    Edit: also not evilfoxhound, who is much funnier than me.
    Edited by 1 at 04/06/09 @ 17:34

  • paulf #11 3 years ago

    im no 360 fanboi and a proud owner of a ps3, but really Home is a bag of shite

  • Bigglesworth #12 3 years ago

    lol, fair enough =)

    To be honest charging for the picture frames does feel like unspeakable chiseling. Hopefully its just to keep usage to a minimum until they can improve the backend...

  • callum9999 #13 3 years ago

    I'm a PS3 owner and I don't think very highly of the "Hannah Montana: The Movie" game, but I don't go around moaning about it whenever its mentioned and ridiculing anyone who likes it, I just don't comment.

    For the record, I don't like Home enough to use it much but I don't feel the need to constantly moan about it (was looking forward to trying out the Buzz game though)

  • shotgun44 #14 3 years ago

    Pay for the pictures!? Someone tell sony about Facebook. Microsoft got the message!

    Disclaimer: Not a fanboy comment.

  • shotgun44 #15 3 years ago

    I don't really like home, but I understand some people do. Get the loading times down, get some more useful FREE content in there and I'll be sold.

  • Retroid #16 3 years ago

    Excellent: something they promised well over a year ago! \o/

    Hopefully there'll be a free 'frame' otherwise they can shove it up their arses.

  • Vistrix #17 3 years ago

    lol its just as ridiculous as paying to play with other people online...

    As SCEE have always said, you dont have to pay for the extras, its free to use the photo upload service. Its up to you if you want to pay for the premium frames.

  • spookyzombie #18 3 years ago

    "I wonder how many regular users there are other than the kiddy fiddlers grooming around the virtual pool table?"

    The pool table you can never actually get a game on? It's worse than my local in the mid ninties. Perhaps they should introduce a way to leave a 'virtual pound' down to guarantee the next game against the previous winnner?
    Edited by 1 at 04/06/09 @ 18:30

  • SeesThroughAll #19 3 years ago

    Seriously.

    Charging for virtual photo frames?

    They should be paying me to log in again.

    Seriously.

  • Domovoi #20 3 years ago

    I love the irony in all those posts claiming that any criticism towards home can only come from 360 fanboys.

  • Eraysor #21 3 years ago

    "I love the irony in all those posts claiming that any criticism towards home can only come from 360 fanboys."

    +1

  • Loser #22 3 years ago

    Right, Home is mince but if people are willing to pay for photo frames etc and it keeps the PSN free I'm a happy bunny...

  • Vistrix #23 3 years ago

    @Ace Grace You can delete it... it doesnt remove itself from the menu because its part of the firmware.

  • insincere_dave #24 3 years ago

    "@Ace Grace You can delete it... it doesnt remove itself from the menu because its part of the firmware."

    It's part of the landscape now, just like casual racism and sexism in the early to mid 20th century!

  • Ryze #25 3 years ago

    Ha! First sentence is a dirty pisstake. I've not read the comments or the rest yet...

  • Ryze #26 3 years ago

    "I love the irony in all those posts claiming that any criticism towards home can only come from 360 fanboys."

    +1

    ++

  • Aname #27 3 years ago

    To those saying only 360 fanboys are the ones criticizing Home.. My only console is a PS3, I don't intend to buy another, and I think Home is utterly dire. As the EG review correctly spotted, it's like some dystopian corporate controlled world, it's without any soul or personality, even speech is controlled and censored, and people actually dance to adverts for Sony products. Hideous. What makes it worse is that it just seems like an opportunity completely squandered. Rather than having identical looking people, there could have been really deep customization options but the designers behind home didn't want it to look like "the bar from Star Wars" with all manner of weird shapes, sizes and looks, as they thought it might intimidate some people. Completely the wrong choice, at least then there would have been some diversity, some interest, some personality. They could have got other people on board, have live - or pre-recorded - gigs from bands or DJs or whatever for people to check out enjoy, virtually dance to, but instead have eternally looping PSP ads. They could have based the idea around LBP and had people create their own homes as levels to play through, something interesting to check out, but instead we can only arrange IKEA furniture in a bland minimalist apartment. Of all the settings they could have chosen, fantastic, otherworldy, dreamlike, whatever, they chose a hellish holiday resort that no-one in their right mind would want to spend time in. The whole thing seems like its been designed by some awful stereotypical soulless ad exec whose idea of heaven is a tacky leisure complex populated by brainwashed people who want to do nothing more than worship the corporate entity, buy their products, their clothes, their furniture, their picture frames, and then dance to that corporate entity's adverts. Those were my impressions anyway.
    Edited by 5 at 06/06/09 @ 05:32

  • wellzy4eva #28 3 years ago

    It's just gonna end with lots of guys uploading pictures of their private parts and trying to show them to women who will actually be guys in female avatars...

  • Bigglesworth #29 3 years ago

    To those saying only 360 fanboys are the ones criticizing Home

    Nobody said that =)

  • Law07 #30 3 years ago

    @ Aname, seriously get a life.

  • Xerx3s #31 3 years ago

    "@ Aname, seriously get a life. "

    You are furiously dismissing any criticism against a virtual world made by your favourite console maker. I think that your comment applies more to yourself than anyone else really.

  • CannonAnBall #32 3 years ago

    I went back to Home at the start of the week and its a place of real potential. The loading times are a problem and really hampers the flow of the experience. Sort this out and it'll be better.

    Charging silly prices for picture frames is a joke though.

  • CannonAnBall #33 3 years ago

    @Aname I agree completely to be honest. A soul it does not have!

  • Deucalion #34 3 years ago

    @ Aname +1

    Have anyone here ever bought anything from the Home stores? Some people must have, since Sony keep releasing more purchasable virtual junk.

  • Zomoniac #35 3 years ago

    Have anyone here ever bought anything from the Home stores? Some people must have, since Sony keep releasing more purchasable virtual junk.

    Well according to the Sony conference over 100,000 people have bought Street Fighter clothing. It's £1.29 each for headgear, top half, bottom half and footwear, so over a fiver to dress your avatar up in SF gear! Some people are clearly fucking stupid. They've had some Watchmen and Star Trek clothing that was free, and do usually have a few free items that rotate, so I check from time to time, but never paid real money for anything.

  • chubster2010 #36 3 years ago

    @ Zomoniac.
    re. ' It's £1.29 each for headgear, top half, bottom half and footwear, so over a fiver to dress your avatar up in SF gear! Some people are clearly fucking stupid.

    Surely it's a matter of taste? I've not spent a penny in home, but if people can see the value in buying stuff like that, then that's up to them.

    Personally, I can't imagine anything more boring than playing Football Management sims (for example), but if it makes others happy, good for them! I certainly wouldn't label them 'fucking stupid' simply for having different tastes to me.

    As for Home being shit - the same thing applies. I really like it, but can seen that its not everyones cup of tea. If you don't like it, don't play it. SImple.People who moan about not being able to get rid of the icon from your XMB - jesus, life is a real bitch isn't it? I bet you can't sleep at night, worrying about that little blue icon clogging up your LCD screen....
    Edited by 3 at 05/06/09 @ 16:10

  • Ryze #37 3 years ago

    Why is the Home mall content not also accessible from the Playstation store?

    Why can I not easily check which of my friends are in home from the XMB?

    Why can I not choose a mode that encourages Home to place me in 'instances' of worlds with my friends and freinds of friends?

    Why is there no method of creating a custom space? It'd be nice to have a Eurogamer space, for example.

    Why can't adjacent areas auto download in the background, rather than only prompting to do so when I try to enter them for the first time?

    Why can't I jump straight to a specific area directly from the XMB?

    Why do I have to wait for Home to 'go online'? This thing should be integrated. It doesn't need a bloody title screen to 'press start' from.

    I think I've been to the mall once - there was so much faffing involved, that there's no point in going back. No chance I'll be spending anythig any time soon. I'm reluctant to even buy anything from the Playstation Store as I don't trust that the bloody things will work properly in 2-3 years, when the console eventually dies or is replaced with a new one.

    Fail.

  • Bigglesworth #38 3 years ago

    Some cool ideas there; particularly the more intelligent background downloading. You can backgorund-download the spaces already of course, but as you say only when you first approach them (and, I'm guessing, only one at a time - haven't tried more).

    A lot of the other things could legitimately be answered by pointing out that Home is still only a beta product. Yeah, yeah, I know, release dates, slippage, got to get something out, laughing stock, etc, but still.

    Btw, you can currently check which friends are in Home from the XMB - it appears as their current activity in your friends list. Also, custom spaces: that's clubhouses isn't it?

    Oh yeah, and your user pic is ace =)