Assuming you haven't been hit by connection problems you'll probably already have sampled PlayStation Home, Sony's new 3D virtual world on PS3. For those that haven't, based on first impressions it offers a unique, bizarre and sometimes hilarious experience laced with potential.
We recently spoke to Dan Hill, Home service manager for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, about the long-delayed project's development period, what the open beta has to offer and how the service will develop in the years to come.
Home took a long time in getting to this open beta stage. What were the main development challenges that led to its numerous delays?
Dan Hill: Home is a massively complex, global platform, with high-end production values. We also took some time to refocus its development and prioritisation to better serve our community of gamers.
There's a delicate line between building up consumer anticipation and frustrating them when a product doesn't show on time. In hindsight, do you think Home was announced a little too early?
Hill: I've said publicly before that we've perhaps not gone about this as well as we could have, in terms of communicating the status of the project and setting expectations about its availability.
Home's scale and ambition, development complexities, not to mention commercial and legal requirements and planning, have meant that it has taken us longer than we'd perhaps have liked. But we had to be sure it was stable and robust, and that we had a pipeline of content and partnerships coming down the line.
I think the decisions we made to delay were the right ones, but as I say, we perhaps could have communicated this a little better.
Has Home been designed more as a gaming platform or as a social networking destination?
Hill: Home has been designed predominantly as a platform for our gaming community. Inevitably, with the communication tools on offer within the service, social interaction will occur - and this is great. We want our community to come together and interact, and to share the Home experience together.
How will it satisfy hardcore gamers as well as more casual players?
Hill: If you want to just come in, meet people, chat, watch videos, or play casual mini-games, then Home will cater for that.
If you are a fan of a particular title or franchise, then themed spaces and areas will help to expand on that experience, through downloadable items, home rewards, game launching, and exclusive content and game-related activities.
Can you tell us a little bit more about Home as a gaming platform, so about the depth and variety of the mini-games on offer and about the themed game spaces?
Hill: Currently in the public Home areas, you can play chess and draughts in Home Square. You could then pop into the Bowling Alley and enjoy a game of pool, or a frame or two of 10-pin bowling. You'll also be able to visit the arcade, which has a variety of mini-games, including a Home version of Echochrome.
We'll be changing these arcade games as we evolve the service to make sure they stay fresh. We're developing many other games in-house at the moment, and again these will be added as we go along. Our third party partners are also developing their own mini-games within their themed spaces, and some of these are looking fantastic.
We'll keep you posted on progress, but suffice to say that there are some really exciting spaces and games coming down the line.
Have any other virtual worlds or MMOs influenced Home's development?
Hill: Obviously we are aware of other companies who have built services that could, in some ways, be construed as similar to Home, but really we've got a totally different focus. We've very much come at this from our own angle, and made decisions about the platform to make it appropriate and engaging for our loyal community of gamers.
I understand Home's a 16-plus environment, but how will it be policed, and what limits and safeguards have you imposed to combat griefing?
Hill: We employ a full team of specialist multi-lingual moderators in the SCEE region, and Home has a number of grief reporting mechanisms and tools built into the core client. The safety and security of our community is extremely important to us, and we take it very seriously.
Will you need a particularly strong internet connection to run Home lag free?
Hill: Like any online service, generally speaking the faster the connection you have the better. However, we've tested extensively with a variety of different speeds and have had a good experience across the board.
Home introduces new revenue streams for Sony through partnerships with publishers, advertisers and clothing companies, to name a few, but is Home actually viewed internally as a system seller? Will it move PS3s?
Hill: We want to offer our first party studios and third party partners a solid platform on which to extend their brands, franchises, and titles. To that end, we will be adding new content, activities and spaces throughout Home's lifecycle, and in time I would say that Home will definitely become a reason to purchase. Today, we are at the beginning of a long journey - now is the time to start its evolution.
PlayStation Network has been playing catch-up with Xbox Live for a while. Can Home help PS3 snatch the initiative in the online space?
Hill: Home is a brand-new service and no-one else is doing anything of this scale or ambition. We're a platform-holder doing something genuinely new and exciting, and we're proud of that.
The PlayStation Network is getting better all the time, and Home is integral to our online offering. If you buy a PS3 and you grow with us, as Home evolves, you are going to become part of something very special, something unlike you can experience anywhere else.
Will Home be supported not just throughout PS3's lifespan, but also when potential successors to the console are released?
Hill: Yes, Home is a platform service, and its potential is almost limitless in terms of where it could go. We see it as having a very long and fruitful life.
What can you tell us about plans to take Home cross-platform and will it be accessible in any shape or form via PSP?
Hill: We're looking at possible future directions for the service, but at the moment we're focusing on making Home as good as it can be, and getting content, activities and spaces into the service that are genuinely going to add something to the PlayStation experience, and make it a very special place for our community.
If only they had started working on Home 5-8 years ago then the transistion period would have been much smoother. Rather than opening it up as a Beta imagine if they actually had the full application with everything they wanted in it ready to go on Day 1, it would probably have blown us all away.
Ive only seen it at a friends (not for very long) and could see what they were trying to do, here's hoping that when I get a PS3 next year it's a bit more 'full' with all the content that there should be.
rather than a 50+ post complaining about the in's and outs of this why don't we all stand back and say, hey, this is free. i for one wont be spending much time on this after playing a couple of games of ten pin, 2 minutes on breakout and five minutes speaking with some guy from france. but i did all this for free. if i feel like it in the future or if something pops up to take my interest, i may go back online but it still wont cost me anything. sony are doing a great job here trying to bring something new to the consol market. it wont sell consols but at least when we're tired of cod4 and gta and want something a little different we can just pop onto home for a five minute wander. great stuff sony. thanks. question: what giant project are microsoft doing for us all for nothing? and lets face it, when people are saying how much better live is than the ps3 alternative (i have both), you go to download the latest demo, i can do it just as easy on one platform to the next but one is free. a big difference in my book. my point, why complain about something that is offered to you for free with absolutely no pressure to use it?
Roger, while I agree with you in that free stuff is always good and I welcome free stuff with open arms, I don't think this'll quite be the system seller that Sony think it will be.
I have mentioned previously that I sell all of the current consoles and both the New Xbox Experience and Home are pretty unheard of for every day customers who do not access gaming news websites or the like.
This is part of the reason that it won't be a system seller - customers won't know what it is. Lets take the Wii as an example, clear cut adverts telling you that you(or your celebrity counterpart) waves a remote, and it relates to the screen, resulting in fun for all the family.
Sony and Microsoft adverts contain cinematic renders of game footage, or australian and dutch dudes saying they built massive mullets or a dog that blows up! If you don't know what it is, you're just gonna go "meh, that's obviously not for me"
Sony need to advertise home as a global networking place, or a 3D world which would directly aim it towards chat room, and forum users.
If it's punted as a 3d myspace/bebo/facebook with loads of gaming and media features the PS3'll do very well, simply because people will then know what it can do for them.
why complain about something that is offered to you for free with absolutely no pressure to use it?
you make a good point but you could also ask why they didnt spend all this time and effort on something else? also it may be free but they intend to make money by selling items to you.
the mini games seem to be something to attract the casual gamer which isnt a bad thing but i still fail to see the point of the whole thing as gaming is a hobby and this makes it a life which kind of disturbs me.
rather than a 50+ post complaining about the in's and outs of this why don't we all stand back and say, hey, this is free. i for one wont be spending much time on this after playing a couple of games of ten pin, 2 minutes on breakout and five minutes speaking with some guy from france. but i did all this for free
nothing's free when you have microtransactions on tshirts and lamps.
Home will definetly be brilliant, but it would take time. Just imagine the sort of stuff that could be out in a year or two. GTAIV clothing? Burnout toy cars? Killzone 2 room accessories? who knows...
I don't own a PS3, and even after reading this article I still can't really say that I understand what Home is for.
Is it a chat room? A lobby for online gaming? A content store? Is it all of this and more?
Apart from the chat element, what are the benefits of having to walk across a virtual town just to play online or get to a shop that sells mission packs? Surely whizzing through a menu screen to the content you want is quicker?
Most importantly, if someone like myself who follows the gaming press daily, struggles to see any benefit to Home, what are the chances of your average punter seeing this as a deal breaker when looking to buy a console?
Those of you using it have probably noticed that purchasing items directs you to a portal via the PSN store. It's free right at the moment to purchase clothes, homes and furniture but in time they will charge for items.
maybe there will be spaces for multiplayer games, where people congruate and meet other players into that game.
a big plasma with the leaderboards, trophies etc. a good way to find players for a game that none of your real life mates have.
we hear the potential word getting flung around a lot these days. but home could definately morph into something very cool - as long as sony dont restrict user creativity and implent popular requested features.
The service itself is 'completely' free, you're under no obligation at all to buy these little sundries that they're promoting, they're merely there for people who do want to buy them. It's no different to walking through the highstreet and window shopping - it's not like the store attendants run out of the shop and demand that you buy something for taking their products in visually.
I think that Home has enormous potential, and while in itself it's probably not a selling point just yet, I can see, as should anyone who doesn't have a quark for brains, the direction that it's taking and the possibilities that it will open up in time.
You have directors hawking their latest releases on there. Gaming companies alike have their own spaces on the way, in which they can promote up an coming products. There will probably be music stores, movie stores, clothing and accessory stores - maybe even a book store, if I'm lucky. There is a massive amount of potential for Sony to make money from other companies, for advertising and all number of other services, and they're leaving the consumer to wander around their service, for 'free', and letting them spend their money when and where they want to, instead of forcing you to buy a subscription that will merely allow you to do something that PC gamers have been doing for free, for years - multiplayer gaming.
Just thought I would let you people know theres another way of getting free gear on home (other then playing the arcade games) You need a Japanese account, then go to the PSN store and download the Namco beta (its a demo of 2 levels from 4 retro games which is pretty cool on its own).Its on the 2nd option down at the start of the PSN store and you should see it straight away (its the one with a red n on the cover). Its free to download and you get Pacman, Dig Dug, Xevious and Galaga demos. All you need to do is play the games to unlock upto 4 items per game that you get to use in Home. These range from some cool n funky clothes to furniture for your studio (including arcade cabinets) and best of all they're all free!
I think that Home has enormous potential, and while in itself it's probably not a selling point just yet, I can see, as should anyone who doesn't have a quark for brains, the direction that it's taking and the possibilities that it will open up in time.
You have directors hawking their latest releases on there. Gaming companies alike have their own spaces on the way, in which they can promote up an coming products. There will probably be music stores, movie stores, clothing and accessory stores - maybe even a book store, if I'm lucky. There is a massive amount of potential for Sony to make money from other companies, for advertising and all number of other services, and they're leaving the consumer to wander around their service, for 'free', and letting them spend their money when and where they want to..
Yeah, there's already places to do that - the high street and the internet.
Well it is a part of the internet, or did you mean the web?
It's called evolving ideas. Combining existing ideas and features and making something more. Just like mobile phone companies do with their handsets. It's useful having a camera and music player on your phone, no?
To sum it up "Stick with us and it'll get better and eventually become worthwhile".
This seems to mirror Sony's whole attitude with the PS3. "You're buying it for the potential." Hence the reason I've resisted temptation and not bought one yet.
Keep trying Sony, you're getting better at giving me justification for your console's pricetag but it's not there yet.
What a waste of time this whole set up is,so how to communicate with other users easily? PS3 dont come with a headset or a keyboard so does that mean i have to use the pad....yet more "costs" required i'm guessing £££'s for those...also surely selecting games,add-ons,updates etc is quicker using a menu/web page OS like microsofts NXE than walking round some morbidly photo realistic sterile world with no character using an avatar devoid of all emotion?
I like home alittle bit because i can talk to all my m8s but the the connection is rubbish.U have to keep restarting the ps3 just to get it to work,plus after a while it gets borin cause theres nothin to do.You have to buy clothes with real pound and that takes the mick.There should be stuff that u can get for free.Overall i think sony should re-think this or put some updates on it to make it better
I have to say that I have never been that excited about the Idea anyway. I took a look around last night and there is some interesting stuff, like the theatre.
I have to say that I will not spend a penny on doing up my flat or anything. The loading of every area is just plain painful. I know its an open Beta, but its not going to sell consoles in my opinion!
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There is a massive amount of potential for Sony to make money from other companies, for advertising and all number of other services, and they're leaving the consumer to wander around their service, for 'free', and letting them spend their money when and where they want to, instead of forcing you to buy a subscription that will merely allow you to do something that PC gamers have been doing for free, for years - multiplayer gaming.
