Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds 180
Slatterz writes "Sony and Microsoft are poised to do battle in virtual worlds. The console kids both announced Second Life-style virtual environments at the Tokyo Game Show today. Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation. Players are represented by avatars which live a virtual life — engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."
"Oh yay" (Score:5, Insightful)
Real Moneyz? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now the real question is will people be able to make real income off these clones as many have and failed in Second Life?
Article misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having RTFA, and also having a background as a games dev.
Home is a virtual world, but isn't Microsoft's avatars pretty much just the same approach as Miis?
I think the article's a little misleading in implying that Microsoft are making some virtual world (like Home or 2nd Life), when instead, it's just giving devs a representation of the player to put into their own games, like how Miis are currently handled on the Wii.
2nd Life? (Score:3, Insightful)
escaping to another world. (Score:5, Insightful)
"engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."
Strange how people will sit in a bedroom controlling an avatar which is decorating it's bedroom....
Although I can understand to an extent. there have been times when I was unhappy and being able to spend a few hours in a virtual world completely disconnected from my real life somehow helped and overall made me a happier person. Don't play now that real life is good.
I avoid WOW at all cost though. I want to play it but I've seen what it does to people and I know I'd get hooked.
Like Second Life? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Oh yay" (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Article misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually another useless article from The Inquirer [theinquirer.net], republished on pcauthority.com.au.
Sure, Home bears a glancing resemblance to Second Life, albeit a homogenized one, but the NXE bears absolutely no resemblance other than they both have avatars and feature text and voice chat. Virtual world, NXE ain't.
Where is slashdot's bullshit filter when we need it?
Re:"Oh yay" (Score:3, Insightful)
There are more non-furs in Second life than there are furs
There is a MUCH higher (furs)/(non furs) ratio in Second Life than in meatspace and, face it, most of the internet.
Nice try.
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Re:I'm not a young hippster (Score:1, Insightful)
My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic).
I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar.
You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.
Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them? Stupid, but there we are.
We are conditioned to not be satisfied with how we look, because that doesn't suit manufacturers. A customer base that isn't happy with how they look is a profitable one. Its no surprise to see this extending into the virtual world.
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Apples and Oranges... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony's 'Home' is really not comparable with Microsoft's new avatars/Xbox UI. Home is a virtual world, MS' UI is just that, a UI.
OSS? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not doing it till someone open-sources it, so I guess I'd stick to Linden.... I don't want to be bogged down in proprietary lockdowns, thank you very much.
This is not targeting Second Life (Score:4, Insightful)
What has been described in the press so far doesn't sound anything like Second Life, except at the most superficial level. These systems are targeting things like IMVU and Puzzle Pirates. There are more similarities between Slashdot and Livejournal than there are between Second Life and Sony Home.
Re:oh good grief. (Score:2, Insightful)
> the failure of second life should be an indicator here
Wait, Second Life failed? When did that happen? I was having meetings about it only yesterday!
what an awful article (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony announced Home a long time ago. And yeah, it does look a bit like Second Life. But given that Second Life is meant to be like real life, it is odd that other things look like it too?
MS didn't announce any kind of virtual world at all. They have avatars now, but no world to roam in. It's not anything like Second Life or such.
Honestly, this whole article reads like more Second Life PR. I can't believe how much PR these guys get. A guy on the plane next to me two days ago was reading an article that said explained how Second Life is hot again, that companies are "moving in" again. Which of course is absurd, Second Life was never hot before and it isn't hot now, and companies "move in" at times, rarely having any positive effect on their sales or Second Life for that matter.
Linden Labs has some of the most amazing PR I've seen.
RTFA: Not even close to SecondLife (Score:2, Insightful)
"Ryoji Akagawa of Sony said that around 24 game design companies would provide the content needed for Home - but didn't give much else away. "
This is nothing like SecondLife, then - barely even an imitation.
SecondLife is about user content and creativity while Sony's - and quite possibly Microsoft's - solution is about you paying them for the right to purchase items created by other companies. You have zero capacity to create your own content and items.
In other words, this isn't a virtual world: This is a 3D chat room, straight from the jolly 90's.
Re:Real Moneyz? (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as I can see, no.
This isnt about your content: This is about them selling YOU content.
Ofcourse, they may add some ways for you to make a buck, or I suppose other people will come up with ways to make a buck despite Sony's objections (e.g. coming up with gold farming in EverQuest).
Heck, look at SecondLife: Its own in-world currency wasnt worth anything other then being a game token until someone decided it was worth real life dollars. And the rest is obsessed, greedy, overly-advertised history.
Re:This is not targeting Second Life (Score:2, Insightful)
What has been described in the press so far doesn't sound anything like Second Life, except at the most superficial level. These systems are targeting things like IMVU and Puzzle Pirates. There are more similarities between Slashdot and Livejournal than there are between Second Life and Sony Home.
Parent has it right.
This is targeting the "We (corporate) create stuff - you buy it" market, that is populated by the mainstream typical user who doesnt want to learn how to create their own content or shape their own environment.
This is about you coming in and buying like a good little consumerist, then going to a fancy club populated by other cool people and run a dance animation for 2 hours trying to get compliments for your self assembled looks and get people to go play a game with you.
Ofcourse, this stuff is happening in SecondLife - but that is because SecondLife enables people to create an environment where this is possible, as well as other places where other types of behavior are encouraged.
Doing anything except for this particular behavior is not going to be possible nor encouraged in Sony's Home service.
Re:I'm not a young hippster (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them?
Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?
Re:escaping to another world. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a young hippster (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's precisely inability to get along with the client interface. As a (not exactly veteran) SL player who hangs out where the new players first show up, I can tell you why so many people quit:
1. The client interface just doesn't even work. It's not that they can't get along with it, it's that they sign up for a character and the SL client program tells them that it doesn't work on their hardware. They consider buying a new computer just to play a stupid game, and think "that's really lame" and shrug and go do something else. I know a half-dozen people who have gone down that route.
2. They get online, jazz up their avatar, look around, and say "uh, now what?" They're coming from a television or WoW background and expect that someone has written a plot and lined up a bunch of things for them to do, and when they realize that there isn't a goal, that there isn't a dedicated newscaster to stand there and entertain them, they say "what's the point?" and leave. (I see that literally every time I get on SL: a new person gets on, says "so what's the goal of the game?" and when people say "there isn't one" the person says "that's dumb." and logs off, most likely forever.)
My guess is that the active population of SL is less than 1/100 of what Linden claims, possibly much less.
But, for what it's worth, I fairly rarely hear of/see people who are having consistent problems with the (stupid) interface. I think people get used to it.
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