PlayStation Home Beta Opens to the Public

Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for PlayStation Home, the virtual world designed for PlayStation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.

Penny Arcade also summed it up well

[nweaver (113078)]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/12/ [penny-arcade.com]

Makes you want to rush out and get a PS3.... NOT.

Short Review: It Sucks

[rsmith-mac (639075)]

I loaded it up early this morning, and in short, it's terrible. It's everything bad about Second Life meets the Xbox NXE meets Miis. I was going to write a lengthy explaination as to what's wrong, but Tycho over at Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] has done a much better job hitting on everything, and using bigger words in the process. So without further ado:

The Beta for Playstation home is now available to everyone, and now you know what I know: this is what happens when your marketing department tries to make a game. Here is everything you need to understand about Home, if you should accidentally launch it from your XMB: press and hold the Playstation button in the center of your Dual-Shock or Sixaxis controller. From the menu that appears, select Quit.

There are things about Home that are simply beyond my understanding. Chief among these bizarre maneuvers is the idea that, when manufacturing their flimsy dystopia, they actually ported the pernicious notion of scarcity from our world into their digital one. This is like having the ability to shape being from non-being at the subatomic level, and the first thing you decide to make is AIDS.

If you approach an arcade machine and there is a person standing in front of it, you will not be able to play it. Likewise, if you see people bowling and think that bowling is something you might like to do, you probably wont be able to. Unable to play arcade games like Ice Breakers and Carriage Return the first several times we logged on, these games had begun to take on an epic stature in our minds. These were gushing fonts of liquid fun, habit-forming and dangerous - for the good of our virtual society, the supply had to be controlled. When we were finally able to play them, we learned that they were the equivalent of browser games.

There is nothing about the experience of using Home to suggest that you are actually moving through a single, contiguous environment. It is very clearly a handful of walled off zones, where you are confronted by incessant load screens in a desperate search for stimulation. From the moment you enter one of their ultrahygenic "amusement regions," it's clear that all life has been burned away. You get the sense that this is a place in which no interesting thing could ever happen.

There is already a growing school of Home apologetics, fostered by the same Order of Perpetual Masochism that lauded the rumble-free Sixaxis at launch and suggested, hilariously, that Lair and Heavenly Sword were videogames. They're under the impression that because something is free, this places it on some golden dais beyond censure. It's no virtue to give away something that no-one in their right mind would buy. Sony has no idea what this world is for, and that ambiguity infuses every simulated millimeter of it.

This is the terrible secret that roils beneath their false universe: it is nothing more than a cumbersome menu, a rampart over which you must hoist yourself to accomplish the most basic tasks.

(CW)TB out.

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[Tony Hoyle (11698)]

There are 18 million PS3 already worldwide with 14 million PSN accounts. So the massive amount of traffic on the Home servers yesterday was understandable. No other MMORPG or online world has ever been build to handle such a gigantic userbase.

And about 1% have even heard of Home.. and even then at 3am it was so full it was unusable.

Of course, give it a week or two and it'll be empty.

One gigantic party? LOL. Sounds like you've never even seen it. It's loads of people wandering around aimlessly using their 'hello' macro and looking at dumb psp adverts.

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[maxume (22995)]

Why would you bother calling someone else a fanboy?

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[badasscat (563442)]

Clearly you either work for Sony or are otherwise tasked with promoting Home. And I don't just mean that because I find it so unbelievable that anyone could be so gung-ho about such an obviously flawed program, but also because you've clearly got your hands on information that nobody could possibly know given the limited amount of time the public has had to digest this thing at this point. I played around in there last night for a few hours and I didn't see half the stuff you're talking about.

There are 18 million PS3 already worldwide with 14 million PSN accounts. So the massive amount of traffic on the Home servers yesterday was understandable. No other MMORPG or online world has ever been build to handle such a gigantic userbase.

Then why did I only see about 200 people total in the entire world last night?

Let's break it down. Last night when I tried to connect to the PSN network, I was told I'd need a system update. Half an hour later, my system went through its reboot and I was done with that. So, then, go to load home. Another download, another reboot, another half an hour. So, now I'm finally in my apartment. I go to leave, and am confronted with yet another download.

What regular person is going to put up with this? This only even has a prayer with the truly hardcore. It's too much work to even get started.

Everyone is filling out their friends list with people they've met. People are playing the in Home games together, checking out the initial game spaces for Uncharted and Far Cry 2, dancing in the social music area, or just hanging out chatting with their old or new friends.

I saw, and I am totally serious about this, nobody doing any of these things.

There are things to unlock in the various games throughout Home for your avatar or personal spaces. And of course there are things you can buy if you wish to.

I certainly found things I could buy (who is Sony kidding with this? I'm going to pay $1 for a fake table?). I found nothing I could unlock. And if I couldn't, no average person who doesn't have four hours to kill on a Thursday night is going to.

If you are a solo player you can setup up an online game and then invite or have people join you while you are in Home. It shows which game you have setup under your name for other to see. Once you are ready you all launch together right into the game as a party.

Again, I saw not a single person doing this. Why would you invite people this way? It is much, much easier to simply start up the game and send out an invite.

And then there are the third party game spaces that almost every console developer is in the process of creating. You don't have to have the game to enter these areas. Each of these spaces look just like the real game and give you a feel for what the game is like with the overall art style of the space, pictures from the games up on the walls, and movies streaming from the game.

You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes.

The ability to walk around in a space that looks kind of like a game is not very compelling to me, nor I suspect anyone else. Give me a demo and I'm a lot happier, not to mention a lot more likely to buy the game.

What you're saying is not unlike what Linden Labs was saying about Second Life (how every major company was building "islands" in the game). We all saw how well that worked out. People would rather just look at stuff on a web page.

And there are already third party non-game Spaces going into Home like Red Bull's space that is going live next week.

Great, so I can experience an ad!

Can you please tell me why you think people will want to do this? Every single time somebody has tried to position an ad as if it's some sort of compelling content, it has failed. Especially in virtual worlds. Every single time.

A year from now it looks like there will be easily more than a hundred different Sony, third party game, and third party non-g

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[HiVizDiver (640486)]

I have to agree with everything the parent said. I spent about an hour in there, and came out on the other side wondering - "why?" Other than people wandering all over the place, I saw a "bowling alley" with just enough people in it to fill all the available games, a mall with stores trying to sell me virtual stuff for real money, and a movie theater full of people calling each other faggots and n*ggers over voice chat. I saw almost no real "socializing", other than some dance party happening off the central plaza, which was mostly about a female avatar being molested by male avatars that I assume are controlled by 12-year olds (or maybe not... 0_0).

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

I tried it out for a while. I ended up finding the "point" and "laugh" gestures and would randomly pick a spot, repeatedly point at nothing, then start laughing. People would walk by, stop, look where I was pointing, look at me, look back where I was pointing, then move on. It was kind of fun playing the random crazy person. But otherwise, yeah, I really didn't get the point of the whole thing.

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[Conception (212279)]

*looks for the "Disclaimer: I am employed by Sony" and finding none assumes it was a forgetful mistake and moves on*

Re:Sony Is Teaching Microsoft How To Do Online Gam

[mollymoo (202721)]

Where are the dedicated servers for Call of Duty 4 & 5, GT5p, RSV2? Warhawk is the only game I've played on my PS3 which had dedicated servers.

I have a PS3, but I play on a friends' 360 regularly. Live is so good I've got a Live account even though I don't have a 360 myself. It's just better than PSN - it's faster (updates, menus, messaging - Live itself, I don't mean the games), people actually have mics and use them, you can form groups (parties), you can see what your friends are playing, the reputation system means you can prefer and avoid players and the player matching will take that into account, the list goes on and on. PSN is lacking so many features Live has had for years it's pretty embarrassing. It does cost money, but Microsoft use that money to ensure the Live servers are fast (PSN takes an age to show your own trophies, Live is virtually instant) and they can shove money at game publishers and get early releases and exclusive content.

I fucking hate Microsoft and think the 360 isn't particularly impressive - DVDs and no mandatory hard drive sucks, everybody with a 360 I know has had the RROD at least once and worn out many controllers - but even I can see Live is just plain better than PSN. The only people who don't think so are fanboys and people who've never used it. A few games with dedicated server doesn't make up for the deficiencies, even when you take the price of Live into account.

Re:The Greatest Online System In Gaming

[Opportunist (166417)]

My worry is that Sony will make Home the preferred way to create groups, have multi-user chat, set up private games, use the Store and so on.

If they do that, the PS3 will die as a multiplayer platform.

When I play a game, I want to play a game. More specifically, I want to play this game. I do not want to play Second Life to be able to play $multiplayergame. Someone might enjoy 2nd life. I don't. I don't want to be forced to move through some pseudo-multiuser virtual world to do what I want to do.

If people are anything when it comes to their games, it's impatient. Know what was the first thing that made consoles popular over computer based games, back in the good ol' days when computer came with floppy discs and consoles with cartridges? Load speed. It took seconds at most to load a console game, it could take a minute to load a computer game. Right behind it was ease to use. Push the cartridge in and play. No booting, no disk swapping, no searching for the right executable.

When people now have to meander through some virtual world to finally do what they wanted to do in the first place, they will most likely ponder whether it's worth the hassle in the first place. When I fire up a game and select multiplayer, I expect to be in a multiplayer lobby where I may pick my partners/enemies and go on to play it. A system that does not offer this is going to be replaced with one that offers is.

Home Makes Everything Worse

[rkanodia (211354)]

Home is basically a collection of mini-games tied together by a giant pain-in-the-ass world where you have to walk around and stand in a real line in order to use a piece of virtual equipment.

Movie trailers are not the worst idea in the world. I might be interested in watching movie trailers on my PS3. What I'm not interested in doing is logging in to Home, going through a million loading screens, and then watching a trailer (which one? Whichever one they're showing! Want to change it? Too bad!) in a virtual theater full of actual jackasses jumping up and down in front of the screen ("Yo dawg, I know you like TV, so we put a TV inside your TV so you can watch TV while you watch TV!") and make homophobic comments over the voice chat.

Meanwhile, there's nothing to actually DO with anyone you would meet in Home, so the 'social MMO' aspect of Home is totally pointless. I keep waiting for Ken Kutaragi to hold a press conference just to announce, "The Aristocrats!"

Re:

[_xeno_ (155264)]

I might be interested in watching movie trailers on my PS3.

Great, then head on over to the PlayStation Store, where you've been able to download HD movie trailers for the PS3 for ages! It does sort of make the Home movie theater seem kind of stupid when you think about it, though - it's a worse version of something that the PS3 has done since launch. But don't tell the marketers that, you know they're just salivating at the thought of being able to force us to watch the trailers they want us to watch rather than trailers for movies we're actually interested in.

Meanwhile, there's nothing to actually DO with anyone you would meet in Home, so the 'social MMO' aspect of Home is totally pointless.

I re

PS3 Fan

[Enderandrew (866215)]

I just bought my second PS3. I'm a PS3 advocate, but frankly Home is two years too late. I think Sony went into this generation expecting to coast on their reputation from previous generations, and didn't do enough to actually win people over. The PS3 is the best BluRay player on the market, and a solid console, but frankly I'm not sure it even matters anymore.

BluRay is PS3's saving grace

[compasseng (947192)]

When the PS3 first came out, I derided them for pushing BluRay, which IIRC was the main reason the console came out so late (?). What I've come to realize is that BluRay is the PS3's saving grace. If they had gone with DVDs like the 360 did, there would be little reason to own one.

I own all three consoles, and I find the PS3 to be a capable multimedia machine. I use it to play movies and we've rented some off the PlayStation network. But I only own one game for it, compared to my 4 Wii and 9 360 titles.

Re:Oh God...

[bluefoxlucid (723572)]

"Home is two years too late"

Looks at the entire PS3 community worldwide packed onto the Home servers...

I don't see it.

"coast on their reputation"

Yep, that's why they just tacked on a controller gimmick to their same old hardware...wait no that's Nintendo.

They tacked on a "controller gimmick" like Guitar Hero and Rockband... the new controllers coming out these days are actually fun and immersive, and have expanded gameplay from "jam on abstract function-linked buttons!" to "interact directly with objects in the game world, via advanced human interface methods or just using controllers that physically represent the object you're controlling in the game on a high-fidelity analog."

Let's see Sony since the PS2 has:

* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba

They asked IBM to do this IIRC. Also: it's a pain in the ass to code for, and ROI is minimal if you're not writing high-budget scientific simulation programs. A lot of modern supercomputers still use current processors, some have tried Cell but it seems mostly experimental. This is a good field for Cell; game console... not so much. From a business and consumer perspective this was a mistake; too much expense (cost, price) for too little return, and much cost passed on to the consumer.

* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3

i.e. Marketing format war with HD-DVD, in order to push the PS3 and secure the rights to a licensing monopoly in order to rake in cash while making BluRay discs more expensive (no competition). They learned well from DVD+- and Beta/VHS; if you let competing tech get a hold, you'll have to price war with them and lower costs to consumers for the final product to gain market share. They raised costs for manufacturers by banning combined HD-DVD/BluRay as per agreement; and increased market penetration by pushing PS3 as an incidental BluRay player. If they had a legal monopoly in the game console field, they would have gotten a DOJ injunction for this stunt.

* Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft

Yet Nintendo puts out far better stuff... plus Nintendo intentionally broke up and spread their internal development worldwide. Division One brought us The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on the Famicom Disk System; they are now Retro Studios, a second-party developer created by Nintendo by shipping all assets related to Division One (prior and current projects at the time) into a second-party subsidiary. Nintendo has several of these.

* Developed the incredible and gigantic Home online service

It's been out for a day and has proven itself to be a piece of shit.

* Branched out into smaller but high quality game development with PSN games

Competing with WiiWare and XBoX XNA, but I don't know if Microsoft plans to ever develop its own first-party stuff on XNA.

* Created at movie download service for sub-HD movie purchases and rentals

Never heard of it.

* Created the console with most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history

Big deal. Have you seen Megaman 9? That's probably the most awesome game I've seen in a while. Tales of Symphonia 2 also is good. Lots of stuff out there is good... most of it's just "look we have shiny graphics" crap. Eye candy doesn't make a good game, it makes a good movie.

Yeah, they are just 'coasting' on their reputation...

They pretty much are. Most of the industry is coasting on good graphics and flashy technical specs, rather than anything substantial like fun or good games.

Re:

[Darkness404 (1287218)]

* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba

Not like it will actually be *used*. Its not based on the x86 architecture which eliminates it from being used on both Windows PCs and Macs. And honestly, the speed of the media the console is reading from is a much larger bottleneck than its CPU.

* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3

...And what is so great about BluRay? Honestly, I don't see BluRay lasting longer than DVD, and I imagine that 3-4 years from now there will be some other major new format. BluRay is good for today, but I don't see it improving anything in the long term.

* Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft

...And

Re:

[chaim79 (898507)]

Had to fire back on some of these...

* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba

Not like it will actually be *used*. Its not based on the x86 architecture which eliminates it from being used on both Windows PCs and Macs. And honestly, the speed of the media the console is reading from is a much larger bottleneck than its CPU.

Right, it's not x86, it's Power PC. That leaves Windows out of the running (who cares?) but Linux/Unix can run it no problem, IBM sells Bladeservers that run it, there are several companies trying to get into the daughter card processor market with the Cell processor. In theory OSX Leopard/Tiger could be modified to run on the Cell processor, both OS's are x86/PowerPC agnostic.

* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3

...And what is so great about BluRay? Honestly, I don't see BluRay lasting longer than DVD, and I imagine that 3-4 years from now there will be some other major new format. BluRay is good for today, but I don't see it improving anything in the long term.

yah.... I have trouble arguing with this... Mainly because the arguments you are trying to use a

Re:

[TrancePhreak (576593)]

What were sales like for MGS4 again? I think if you added up half of the games you listed you'd make up Halo 3's sales.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21514 [gamasutra.com]

Sony is losing the game, they need to get back on track and stop fooling around with "no price cuts!" and Home.

And your comment about 1080i graphics is hilarious. The Xbox1 was able to do 1080i. The 360 runs rings around 1080p, unlike the PS3 with its limited graphics memory and non-unified limited shader units.

The PS3

Re:Oh God...

[prockcore (543967)]

* Grown the most awesome marijuana in the world and given it all to you.

It's a step forward in the genre

[Carbon016 (1129067)]

No furries.

That's about all good that can be said about it. This genre is inherently unworkable: it's a solution looking for a problem, it's a "virtual world" for the sake of being "virtual" and futuristic. Home addresses no need of the average consumer, it has very little entertainment value, and any applications to organizational tasks are better suited to simpler systems like IM.

When will these companies realize that you generally tend to invent things to make things easier, not abstract them in a confusing mess of real-life analogies and bloated 3D interfaces? Reminds me of the AOL-esque portals of the 90s.

Re:It's a step forward in the genre

[Hal_Porter (817932)]

No furries.

That's about all good that can be said about it. This genre is inherently unworkable: it's a solution looking for a problem, it's a "virtual world" for the sake of being "virtual" and futuristic. Home addresses no need of the average consumer, it has very little entertainment value, and any applications to organizational tasks are better suited to simpler systems like IM.

When will these companies realize that you generally tend to invent things to make things easier, not abstract them in a confusing mess of real-life analogies and bloated 3D interfaces? Reminds me of the AOL-esque portals of the 90s.

It would have been better to create the world with a few computer controlled furries and reward people for killing them. It would create a sense of community for one. The leaders of the lynch mobs could become important political leaders of the virtual world, massive photos of them would hang from buildings, lesser minions would get stuffed furry heads to decorate their apartments. Later on you could have plagues of Miis too, which would need to be eradicated to encourage patriotism toward the platform and hatred of its competitors.

Re:It's a step forward in the genre

[Carbon016 (1129067)]

Oh my god, fund this.

Microtransaction hell

[Ender77 (551980)]

Here is what I wrote in the PS3 suggestion thread after playing home:

" Hi, new to the forum and just want to get my 2 cents in. I tried home and like the potential of what it can be, there isn't much to do at the moment, but I definitely can see where it could go given time. With that said, I can see a lot of negatives that can kill home, especially this early in its infancy. The first and biggest problem I see is that the prices are too high for many. I know some people disagree, but for many of us, it is out of the question for different reasons. Some just cannot imagine spending real money on virtual accessories, especially with no guarantee that home will be around in a few years. A LOT of people are in a financial bind with the way the economy is at the moment and are saving their money for more important things like food/bills/gass..etc, there is no way they are going to waste money on something like this. I personally fall in between those two. Finally, there is just too many people trying this, Sony with home, Microsoft with avatars, games with DLC, itunes, netflix, etc,etc People are having to prioritize where their microtransactions are going. Both Sony and Microsoft will get money at first, but it will eventually taper off with time.

Another negative affect is that you will be creating two classes of people, the have and the have nots. Your going to see rich brats running around with all the best clothes/items/living spaces while everyone else is living in the equivalent of cardboard houses and donating clothes. Not exactly a place the have nots will want to visit.

Now, with that said, I can see a possible solution to this problem. If I was Sony, I would get advertisers to pay to put their real world item brands in home (coke, Pepsi, nike, levis, Olivia,Toyota..etc) and give the virtual clothes/itmes away for free. In exchange, sony can give the companies stats about their products, keep track of what people are wearing, what items are popular. They can even put in items not yet released to see what people say about it and if its popular or a dud.

The other thing is that I would keep the option to pay in real world money for those who have it (and willing to use it), but I would have an alternative in-game money that people can get through activities in home, much like an MMO. These can be things like filling out surveys about products, to having competitions sponsored by advertisers, to scavenger hunts, to sitting and getting paid to watch ads, to get paid to go to sponsors home channels and getting paid to play their games (pop the Pepsi balloons, hit the whack a coke, beat the wrestling Toyota bear..etc). I hope you see where I am going with this. This would seem to be the best WIN-WIN scenario for everyone.

Like I said, I can see the potential of what it can be, it just needs a little work(and a lot more content) to get it started. "
------------

I also want to add that they need to start showing some actual movies in the theater to try and bring in some people and give people TV sets so that they can watch their own videos/music with friends in their home space. There needs to be SOMETHING to bring people in, so far there is nothing really FUN to do. One other quick thing, why is everything crammed together and scarce? The developers have near god like building powers and they create this small, sparse, sterile, cramped areas and buildings. I hope this was just a stress tess minimum stuff and the real goodies will start coming out. I do believe home could be great, however the are kidding themselves if they believe people are going to pay for all the cool features through microtransactions.

"Flawed business model"?

[jlarocco (851450)]

That a pretty bold statement given that the business model hasn't actually been tested yet.

Re:Flawed?

[Junta (36770)]

It can be legitimately criticized, despite being a 'free' product. Notably, an obviously large amount of time and money was invested into this. Instead of considering Home 'free', one could wonder what they could have alternatively done with the servers, developers, or simply the money. Maybe they could have not had those servers and developers and lowered the console price. Or they could have pieced something compelling together. As someone who purchased a PS3, I'm interested in evaluating all the Sony offerings that are being provided free of additional charge, as my purchase contributed revenue they used to do this.

Looking back since they first started teasing Home, it has been a very long time. Now that we've had a chance to see what it has taken so long to piece together, a lot of people may rightly say "that's it?". I know, it's "beta", but few projects with this degree of uncertainty would survive so long without declaring a 'release'.

In my view, there is something actually interesting about the fundamental concept. I could see how the experience could be relaxing. It's obviously comparable in Second Life. Both have yet to hold my attention longer than a first impression, so maybe it isn't as interesting to me as I would think.

Compared to Second Life, I think Sony's Home has done a good job of looking significantly better. The best of second life doesn't look as good, and the prominence of objects designed with all the design talent of the average MySpace page author clutters that landscape with ugly atrocities. Of course, if trying for the social networking aspect, to date the popular ones have been those to allow maximum creativity, for better or for worse.

What they have done worse is aim for too much realism. The avatars move painfully slow. The 'bowling alley' is all but useless because all the slots are pretty much always in use. They could (and should) mitigate this through more instances of 'bowling alleys', I guess it is a matter of them determining the best balance between too sparse and uselessly dense. I would wager if they doubled the instances of bowling alleys, people wouldn't be bothered by the immediate appearance of limited supply, since they wouldn't have any hard time finding an empty lane or whatever. Also, the ability to import such attractions into a personal space could help, so a group of friends would always know where/how they could pass the time. It's clearly a casual gaming play here, which is a proven genre of interest.

I remain dubious of Sony's direction in general. They did this 'Qore' thing in which users are expected to buy pure advertising. Then they realized they wanted to advertise and so they did this 'Pulse' thing. Then they released this 'Home' thing. All the while not seeming to deliver what PS1 and PS2 had achieved success with, a solid set of games.