The PlayStation 3's virtual social hub, Home, has been in an 'Open Beta' ever since it launched in 2008. Thankfully, it doesn't plan to 'do a Google' and keep the software in that state forever, as it was revealed that Home will come out of the Beta phase this December.
At Dundee's Game In Scotland event last weekend, Kirk Ewing from software developer Veemee said that "Home is due to come out of its beta-testing phase in December of this year." Veemee has been responsible for a lot of content on the service, including the London Pub, V-Store and Audi spaces, as well as costumes from franchises such as Batman.
Ewing defended the program, which had promised much in the way of game connectivity prior to its Open Beta, by touting some numbers collated from the testing phase so far. "Most people think that Home is sh*t. I'm here to say that it's not. One in three PS3 owners use Home. There are 1.7 million repeat users each using Home for around 53 minutes on average."
Let's just hope the December release removes the virtual queuing for virtual bowling with virtual friends. I mean, what is that about?
Source
At Dundee's Game In Scotland event last weekend, Kirk Ewing from software developer Veemee said that "Home is due to come out of its beta-testing phase in December of this year." Veemee has been responsible for a lot of content on the service, including the London Pub, V-Store and Audi spaces, as well as costumes from franchises such as Batman.
Ewing defended the program, which had promised much in the way of game connectivity prior to its Open Beta, by touting some numbers collated from the testing phase so far. "Most people think that Home is sh*t. I'm here to say that it's not. One in three PS3 owners use Home. There are 1.7 million repeat users each using Home for around 53 minutes on average."
Let's just hope the December release removes the virtual queuing for virtual bowling with virtual friends. I mean, what is that about?
Source
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Comments
MYM 28 May 2010 04:05
1/5
The problem with Home is that it tried to be something for everyone, and in the process it ended up being something that doesn't appeal to anyone.
DrkStr 28 May 2010 12:09
2/5
I may have spent a total of 53 minutes in Home.
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config 1 Jun 2010 14:24
3/5
@MYM I think it's more a case of bolting too soon. Some of the more recent additions - Sodium, Buzz and Singstar - make it a much better proposition, but most who were going to try it did so when there was nothing but Home Sq, Bowling Alley, Cinema and Mall.
I've prolly spent more than 53 minutes in the Buzz quiz area alone, and the exclusive gig videos in the Singstar zone work pretty well, especially if you're a fan of the band 'headlining' and there are loads of other fans in there at the same time.
I've prolly spent more than 53 minutes in the Buzz quiz area alone, and the exclusive gig videos in the Singstar zone work pretty well, especially if you're a fan of the band 'headlining' and there are loads of other fans in there at the same time.
MYM 2 Jun 2010 04:27
4/5
My gripe with Home is that feels so impersonal. Everything in Home is under the control of Sony, or some third-party company, and it feels that way whenever you're in Home. As a result, Home is so pointless to be in. Take the virtual furniture for example, why would I want to spend 5 dollars on a virtual toilet to place in a virtual apartment that I also spent 5 dollars on? Even though I'm paying for this stuff, all of it is still part of Home, which is owned by Sony, and which Sony can shut down as soon as they decide it's no longer profitable enough to warrant its existence. I'm sorry, but there's something wrong about this. Our games should belong to us, and not to anyone else.
config 2 Jun 2010 09:29
5/5
MYM wrote:
My gripe with Home is that feels so impersonal. Everything in Home is under the control of Sony, or some third-party company, and it feels that way whenever you're in Home. As a result, Home is so pointless to be in. Take the virtual furniture for example, why would I want to spend 5 dollars on a virtual toilet to place in a virtual apartment that I also spent 5 dollars on? Even though I'm paying for this stuff, all of it is still part of Home, which is owned by Sony, and which Sony can shut down as soon as they decide it's no longer profitable enough to warrant its existence. I'm sorry, but there's something wrong about this. Our games should belong to us, and not to anyone else.
I agree on the issue of a closed environment, but this hasn't stopped Facebook from becoming the social networking behemoth it is today, and that's famously a walled garden.
However, FB is completely free, is stuffed to the gills with apps built with social networking in mind.
Perhaps Sony should consider Farmville approach to it's virtual goods. Allow Home users to earn virtual cash by simply using Home, carrying out tasks (nurturing plants in Home Square) or playing games, which they can then spend on goods.
This is already done to some degree, but it's always "win a Nathan Drake outfit by playing the Uncharted minigame". It needs to be more open. Of course, for this propagate it needs to notify others of you latest wins, which could easily be done through a XMB newsfeed and extending the lame-o friend profiles to show latest updates (along with an extended status please)
I'd like to see some sort of world builder, where you and I can design and build our own areas, fill it with our own creations or existing free-to-use ones, and make it available privately to friends or submit it for approval and publication. A sort of LittleBigHome.