Just earlier this month we'd been hearing word from Sony that it was seeing PlayStation Home as
more of a "social game platform" than a "social network," and now we're hearing that Sony might not be seeing it as much of anything. Peter Edward, the director of Home for Sony, says that the service is "not a priority right now." Kind of at odds with his other statement that it's "proved there is a market out there and we've got a lot of people that spend a lot of time in [Home]," but we'll let is slide. So, is this a roundabout way of saying Home hasn't been as great as Sony thought it would be, or just a different way of saying the emphasis is changing? We've never minded Sony's Home efforts on their own, but in the context of an also-ran multiplayer platform, it's easy to see why the company should be focusing on other aspects of the gaming experience.
Update: Sony has
gone on record saying that this statement as reported by
T3 from a talk at the London Games Conference is a misquote, instead saying that Peter was talking about how monetizing Home was not as big a priority as building the platform -- which others have confirmed.
posted Nov 2nd 2009 12:20PM
That's it, I'm selling my PS3 and buying an Xbox.
good on ya! i'm not exactly sure what sony is focusing on with the PS3 but its probably that i have only focused on 360 news
Let's see.. Demon's Souls, Uncharted 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack in Time all in the past few weeks, and soon, God of War Collection .. ah that's right. LOTS OF REALLY GOOD GAMES. You know, the reason people buy a game console. Others could learn from this example.
@oGMo
Actually, it looks like Sony learned from Microsoft's example, seeing as they have have great games from the beginning.
The 360 doesn't have much going for it. Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 are exciting, but that's just about it.
The PS3 on the other hand just released a real GOTY contender in Uncharted 2, has MAG coming out as well as Modern Warfare 2, and God of War on the horizon.
While the 360 has retained dominance throughout, Sony is likely to enjoy a resurgence until the Project Natal/PS3 motion competition arises.
@wii60
im sure that competition will net both of them minimal support from their main audience (the only people that buy them). not to mention timed exclusives work for what microsoft needs them to, high visibility and better console attachment rates.
@Wii60
Xbox 360 doesn't have much going for it? You are crazy!
The real killer for Xbox 360 right now is the STILL over priced wireless adaptor and the STILL over priced HDD.
On a side note, I did get a NetGear Wireless Access point working as a wireless adaptor for the 360, cost all of 19.99!
@ oGMo
"You know, the reason people buy a game console. Others could learn from this example."
Actually I bought my PS3 phat to play BD movies and to be a media centre in the living room. I bet I'm not the only one who did that.
S
@Wii60
I Agreed with you about some good Sony exclusives, but Modern Warefare 2 is going to sell a lot more on the 360, and MAG, GT5 and GOW III are 2010 titles. Only Uncharted 2 was a 2009 release.
So lets see the 360 have Forza 3, Final Fantasy XIII that is almost like an exclusive for the Sony lost, L4D 2, Halo ODST better seller than uncharted, 2 DLC for GTAIV, Teken 6 another exclusive lost to Sony, Shadow Complex for Arcade.
For next year Sony has the biggest game GOWIII, Sony 1 Microsoft 0
360 has Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Splinter Cell, Microsoft 1 Sony 1
So I really think the fight is very very close. There are many others less important games for both consoles. PS3 slim right now is better choice from the price point. I mean c'mon microsoft $99 for wi-fi and over $100 for 120GB HDD. I dont care about wi-fi because I dont use it for gaming but still is way overpriced.
Perhaps leading with the 360 doesn't have much going for it was a bit of a stretch.
What I'm trying to say is that the 360 has been the dominant hardcore gamer device throughout. It doesn't sell like the Wii, but people like us prefer it. However, with the introduction of the Slim and some phenomenal titles just out and inbound it truly it has the most exciting future until the motion control fight. We have a four month window that includes the holidays in which Sony could actually turn this thing around. The idea that someone would sell a PS3 now, at the console's finest hour and only shot for relevance seems like an error.
LOL @ everyone taking the comment seriously!
If Playstation Home had a massively social game like 1v100 it would be used more.
@Carlos
"For next year Sony has the biggest game GOWIII, Sony 1 Microsoft 0
360 has Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Splinter Cell, Microsoft 1 Sony 1"
Are you really implying that God of War is even in the same league sales wise as a Halo title? I'm ignoring any quality comparisons, I know nothing about GOWIII and none of us know anything about Reach. But looking at sales ODST has already sold more than GOWII and it wasn't even a completely new game.
'earlier this month'? and when might that be? yesterday? :p
@Bernie
Not I was not trying to compare GoWIII with any Halo in any aspects, because they are totally different games. Halo is going to sell more than the 2 or 3 Sony bestsellers combined. What I was trying to say is that microsoft doesn't have a comparable title for this category and that GoWIII is going to be one of the best games.
I am a Gears of War / Call of Duty guy, so I don't really care about any of those games both are going to be huge for their respective fans; As an Xbox owner and father of an 8 years kid who loves halo I am going to buy Halo Reach for my kid.
He has Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, Halo ODST & an Xbox 360 Halo Edition (Damaged due to GPU overheating, not RROD or E74).
For me; I am very dissapointed with Gears 2 so now I am playing Ballad of Gay Tony until Modern Warefare 2 arrives.
Geez...aren't you a little late to do this story? And it was already countered by Sony that the comment was taken out of context.
Sony corrected this statement a while ago.
RIP Playstation Home
2008 - Near future
There were no points. There were no winners or losers.
...Oh, there were losers.
If by losers you mean desperate boys trying to meet girls on Home, for a hookup, you sir are correct.
That didnt take them long to abandon it.....guess they dont care when they create something and dont expand on it
You are the definition of fanboi where you care so much about their public image as you're using CAPS to tell engadget to fix it. I wonder if Sony cares so much about you?
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does Picard have 6 fingers?
5 fingers and a nose I believe.
That's his mouth.
YOUR A MOUTH ;p
I tried out Home for about an hour and never went back to it. It was quite lame to say the least.
Same. I thought it was gonna be cool to mess around with, but I found it mostly boring and dumb that you had to buy a bunch of stuff to make you or your home look decent.
I suspected from the start that Home would be a dud. I just always assumed that Sony knew something I didn't and they'd make it better than I imagined.
Guess not.
Home is far from great. I do log on occasionally - but it is becoming less so every week.
My biggest disappointment with Home is the load times. If I want to jump from one space to another, it just takes too long. Half the time, a space needs to be downloaded all over for some really minor change - again adding to wait time. Also, the mini-games are often too crowded to get into. If I want to play poker - forget it. I don't want to wait to play.
Overall, the potential is there, but the implementation is not.
The problem with Home is that it doesn't have many things to offer besides chatting. There are games, for some reason beyond understanding, you have a physical limitation on who can use things and a very limited supply of them put in the world. I haven't been on recently to see if they've fixed this, but the only thing that's helped the situation is the rest of the service is so boring that less people are on trying to get in to the Red Bull planes.
There's no exploring to do. You just select a place from the menu and download it. There's no reward for spending more time in home. The people using the system are, by self-selection of purchasing a video game console, entertained by games and challenges. There is a complete lack of challenges and the games are simple and are limited to a physical exclusivity of usage in a virtual world
I loaded it up once..went through the 'build-a-pretty-boy" intro, walked around for about 5 minutes only to see guys basically dry humping any girl avatar that they could find, exited and went back to playing games.
Home is genius and has a unique place in the digital world.
No matter how empty and uneventful your real life is, Home is the one application that makes your real life look interesting and worthwhile by comparison.
I'm not sure what is worse home or BD live.
Oh, so you Endorse Lies, Mr Ass (referring to avatar)?
Commitment like that from Sony is what makes people not bother to spend $$$ for virtual crapware, like Ghostbuster costumes, etc.
Just commitment? I'd say the term 'virtual crapware' sums up the real reason people don't buy Ghostbusters costumes for their virtual selves.
Definitely a huge waste of development resources. Sony should have focused on improving online gaming experince (i.e. XBOX live)
if they woulda taken the money from home and invested in some 5 dollar blue-tooth headsets to be included with the console so people would actually talk when playing we might have something.
The only difference between playing single player and multiplayer on PS3 is that on multiplayer you get lag.
screw home, get play tv out in the states already!
It's second life with a PS3 skin. Home shouldn't have even been invented, instead they should have just focused all that money and time at making Playstation Network good!
Ever since I installed the new PS3 firmware update... Playstation Home hangs on the loading screen for me...it's a bummer..I kinda enjoyed it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--KAq8V4phY
This is about the only enjoyable activity in Home
To fix the issue, uninstall home and reisntall it. Mine did that too until I googled it.
I tried it once when it was in beta. I found zero value in it. Never touched it since. Hopefully they kill it and focus on continued improvement of the firmware.
I really hope Sony scraps this thing, its useless, I see what they envisioned but its just not working out.
And finishing off the PlayStation Home priorities controversy, the service/virtual world's community manager has told users on the official Home forum that the Sony executive was misquoted in reports that he'd said Home is "not a priority."
From CydoniaX:
Allow me to put your minds at ease about this recent press. The coverage of what Pete Edwards said at the London Games Conference was not only a misquote, it was a misreprentation of what he actually said.
Edwards was saying that monetizing Home was not as big a priority as building a great platform, with a compelling environment and a strong community. Home is still a top priority for Sony and will continue to release quality content and provide a positive experience to our users.
And yes, we will continue working on fixing bugs, login problems, and other user issues.
Additionally, Michael French, the editor-in-chief of Develop Magazine, which hosted the event in question, tweeted to Stephen Totilo this afternoon that Edwards was in fact misquoted: "Edwards was definitely misquoted at our event. His point was that Home is a community platform first, and 'a business' second"
So this should all make Sony's position on Home crystal clear. It's not dead, it's not going away, it's still a priority and it continues to have the full support of the company.
Truth is, 'virtual reality' has never taken off - and Home is really VR without the goggles. As accurately portrayed in Pixar's WALL-E, do we really want to spend our lives plugged into machines or go outside and enjoy nature and partake in physical sports and gaming? Go try paintball or lazertag and you'll be hook - and keep fit. The odd blast of an immersive 3D game, Gears Of War etc, is fine, but social is about tactile living breathing reality. Else we'll all going to die of diabetes. Nasty.
and you say that after watching Wall-E....an animated film about a robot.
Virtual reality is still ahead of the technology curve. You're underestimating things.
Augmented reality is filling the gap until technology can catch up with what we desire.
Once it's immersive enough, humans won't be getting diabetes anymore without severe neglect anyway.
Your thinking here is too limited. The real future direction is complete immersion, as in no more physical body needed after it wears out. You then become a part of the computer cloud. Also, computer technology is evolving so fast that a fully immersed human will barely be able to tell it apart from reality, other than the fact that just about anything is possible. Compare Pacman to Crysis. That's how far we have come in 30 years. Since computer speed is increasing exponentially, the gains in the next 30 years will be even more impressive by comparison. Also, the young field of Optogenetics holds promise in direct computer/brain interfaces. Several projects such as Blue Brain are making real progress in whole brain simulation.
Ps home is stupid anyways
All they have to do is mix Home with GTA and millions will join immediately
Well, I liked this news more when it was mis-quoted. Home is a waste of Sony's resources.
From someone who has both an Xbox 360 and a PS3, there's a reason why I buy almost every cross-platform title for the 360. The Playstation Network is inferior in almost every way to Xbox Live. I honestly don't mind spending the yearly fee for Live, because of all the enjoyment I get from playing multiplayer & co-op titles on it more than justifies the price.
The party, chat, & messaging system is an absolute breeze and crucial to the whole experience. Why PS3 hasn't been able to implement something close to Microsoft's is a mystery to me. All the while Sony has been more concerned with virtual bowling alley's and wallpaper designs for your virtual dorm room.
Really. I've played a LOT of online multiplayer on PS3 with minimal to no issues. I also recall many issues about live network being down in the past (wasn't it down shortly before or after Christmas). Maybe Live is "somewhat" better than PS3's online, but certainly not enough for me to warrant paying their fees to use it.
Home is garbage, sony should scrap it. Or change it into a geographical location based chat platform
Enagadget couldn't resist, there's been a lack of negative Sony stories.
Guys! get with the times!
This news is easily 2 days out of date. Everyone involved has said that this is a misquote and has been bent out of all proportion.
This from Kotaku:
"Allow me to put your minds at ease about this recent press. The coverage of what Pete Edwards said at the London Games Conference was not only a misquote, it was a misreprentation of what he actually said.
Edwards was saying that monetizing Home was not as big a priority as building a great platform, with a compelling environment and a strong community. Home is still a top priority for Sony and will continue to release quality content and provide a positive experience to our users.
And yes, we will continue working on fixing bugs, login problems, and other user issues."
http://kotaku.com/5393968/playstation-home-manager-exec-was-misquoted
Get with the times guys!
Still, the news would have been better if it WAS NOT misquoted.
It saddens me to see Sony continue to support Home when they could be making other improvements instead. Home is a waste of time and energy.
All the while an over-abundance of positive apple coverage, and negative win 7 coverage, hmm maybe there is a word for this sort of thing? *cough* biased *cough*
It still amazes me that they made an avatar editor for Home with way more detailed customization options than either the Xbox Avatars or Miis, which lets you create a face right down to the structure of individual bones, and yet the avatars still look nothing at all like real people. The Mii editor is rudimentary in the extreme, but I've seen Miis that look eerily like their subjects, and yet Home avatars always look dull, dim and dead. It's typical Sony: all technology, no character.
Same with the Home space itself: technically impressive, but bleak and sterile in the extreme.
I thought that must have been wrong, especially considering his job is dedicated to Home; he'd hardly be bashing it because of that.
Home is crap, I would like to see home avatar with the Infamous controls with total freedom to roam & jump everywhere ! that would be incredible. Right now I feel like my avatar is a stick with bad and unresponsive controls ! The Home world is simply uninteresting.
Other than that I prefer my Ps3 over my 360 elite, my Wii is in the closet...been there for several months now !
The day I started Home: "Awesome, this looks like it has promise, though my Avatar's such a douche."
The day Sony started charging for Home accessories: Filled apartment with upside down stock sofas and haven't returned since.
Finally. Maybe if SONY drops HOME they can finally concentrate on basic PS3 functionality.
@Wii60
I Agreed with you about some good Sony exclusives, but Modern Warefare 2 is going to sell a lot more on the 360, and MAG, GT5 and GOW III are 2010 titles. Only Uncharted 2 was a 2009 release.
So lets see the 360 have Forza 3, Final Fantasy XIII that is almost like an exclusive for the Sony lost, L4D 2, Halo ODST better seller than uncharted, 2 DLC for GTAIV, Teken 6 another exclusive lost to Sony, Shadow Complex for Arcade.
For next year Sony has the biggest game GOWIII, Sony 1 Microsoft 0
360 has Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Splinter Cell, Microsoft 1 Sony 1
So I really think the fight is very very close. There are many others less important games for both consoles. PS3 slim right now is better choice from the price point. I mean c'mon microsoft $99 for wi-fi and over $100 for 120GB HDD. I dont care about wi-fi because I dont use it for gaming but still is way overpriced.
ok, so how is Home not a priority? Every time i log in, theres something new or updated. the service keeps getting better and better. so for all you haters out there, stop lying about how bad it is, if you havent even been in home. And no im not a sony fanboy, bc i also have a wii, 360. people aren't ever going to be satisfied. in fact, i hate going to the ps blog because i see all the whining that the commenters do..
HEY MORONS @ ENGADGET THIS IS OLD NEWS AND HAS BEEN CORRECTED.
PS Home is stupid and boring. It's the Sims, with even less interesting things to do.
Paul Miller posts from the far distant (and incorrect) past.
Freaky.
My guess is they've given up on it because it's pretty lame. Before the beta came out I was pretty excited for it, I thought it looked interesting. But once it became available and I actually tried it out, I couldn't believe how poorly it was executed. I mean, it's really really bad. There is no use for it at all. It's a huge embarrassment, really.
Wow I love how Engadget have to get their obvious bias out here. The story was already corrected yet ENGADGET being the wonderful Apple lovers that they are, decided to bash Sony without doing an ounce of research on it.
I was at the Windows 7 event with Steve Ballmer for the Engadget Show, live in person and they decided to use all that time to TALK ABOUT MACS. Then the roundtable involved REVIEWING MACBOOKS AND THE NEW iMAC MOUSE.
Of course their Macheads...their internet media types living in NYC. If they were on the west coast the bias would be even worse. Meanwhile the 99% of the country that doesn't worship either Jobs or Ballmer is running Windows XP and waiting for another good OS. All that aside, however, what does Engadget's observation that Sony needs to shift focus to actually *making games* have to do with pro-Apple bias? Does Apple make a game console we haven't heard about? I suppose the iPhone may have cost Sony a few potential PSP buyers, but other than that..?
Say no to playstation Homo.
It has already been stated that the quote was taken out of context. Sony isn't interested in making money from HOME and are focusing on improving it as a social gaming platform. We already know that it is a successful business venture for them but I repeat SONY MEANS THAT MAKING MONEY ON HOME IS NOT A PRIORITY AND THAT IMPROVING IT'S SOCIAL PLATFORM IS!
I love all these people that bitch about the Wireless N going for $100.00. Dont buy it. Most of us dont need it. We can use internet sharing with a computer or a cheaper bridge or do as I did and put the PS3 and the 360 on the same router used as a access point and pow. It works fine. 360 and PS3 run faster... I use to complain about how slow my PS3 was when it came to updates and downloads but now that It is wired to the same router as my 360 it is alot faster...
Sony creates more online lobbies than games! WTH?? If they had clue one, they'd drop every service except PlayOnline, update it extensively and blow Live out of the water. But nooo, their too busy debating how to make Final Fantasy even more gay.
Home is a unique opportunity for delivery or many things... but it falls short on interaction with different demographics. there is no divide between child or adult. No difference between night & day. THere should be a sun set ever day.. ( & sun rise ) & a cross over point, where virtual bars or clubs open for the adults. in the first few days the world got on to home all we did was dance !! a simple thing.. but still theres no dance floor or clubbing.. ive been a dance music producer for over 20 years & i hate going to clubs !! i dont wont to go out to these horrid places, i want to switch on home, pay a pound to get a weekend pass & go clubbing on there, with exclusive mixes, maybe downloadable sets from top DJs. the infrastructure is there, dam they are sony, they have the music too... ultimately, Bring day & night in to home.. its uses will double & open up a whole new world of possibilities beyond these stupid game spaces.
This is far out of context. The whole quote was something more to the effect of "There's a business we can build out of home, but right now that's not a priority. Instead we're working on making it a functioning service before you make it something pay for etc".
I can't remember the words exactly but the internet does hold them.
What Engadget looking for articles knocking SONY!! You don't say!
well the 68 people in the comments and the one editor don't stack up to the 7 million people logging into Home :)
http://www.develop-online.net/news/32253/PlayStation-Home-attracts-7-million-residents
I doubt 1 milliion people visit this blog :p
what am I doing here I'm going back to Home :)
I never even booted up home... Fail from day one Imo. sony could've spent that time on something more beneficial to the system.
Never booted it up, huh? How can it be a total fail if YOU NEVER EVEN TRIED THE SERVICE?!!?!? Sorry to shout, but that little bit of fanboi drivel just got me riled up!
Sorry Engadgeteers but you misquoted the person.
taken from here: http://kotaku.com/5393968/playstation-home-manager-exec-was-misquoted
PlayStation Home Manager: Exec was Misquoted
And finishing off the PlayStation Home priorities controversy, the service/virtual world's community manager has told users on the official Home forum that the Sony executive was misquoted in reports that he'd said Home is "not a priority."
From CydoniaX:
Allow me to put your minds at ease about this recent press. The coverage of what Pete Edwards said at the London Games Conference was not only a misquote, it was a misrepresentation of what he actually said.
Edwards was saying that monetizing Home was not as big a priority as building a great platform, with a compelling environment and a strong community. Home is still a top priority for Sony and will continue to release quality content and provide a positive experience to our users.
And yes, we will continue working on fixing bugs, login problems, and other user issues.
Additionally, Michael French, the editor-in-chief of Develop Magazine, which hosted the event in question, tweeted to Stephen Totilo this afternoon that Edwards was in fact misquoted: "Edwards was definitely misquoted at our event. His point was that Home is a community platform first, and 'a business' second"
So this should all make Sony's position on Home crystal clear. It's not dead, it's not going away, it's still a priority and it continues to have the full support of the company
Oh and Home rocks, why else would microsoft be copying it for the 360 new dashboard? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
Thank YOU! Engadget should be updating after this is 6 pages old probably to save face. There's no integrity with some of these sites anymore.
holy $h1t mr miller. Congratulations, you actually managed to post an old a$$ story and still miss the week old correction. I imagine that the article about the misquote will reach you in about 3 months from now.
Don't care. Home is a piece of crap. Ever since they took away voice chat it just feels like some crappy avatar game where the basic point is to buy digital accessories with real money. Ridiculous. Bring back voice chat and I'll care.
We heard this on November 1st?
I've always loved my PS3 and Home. PS3 has a lot of advantages to the 360 that I happen to like, it just doesn't have as many games. But I don't care, I love my PS3 and 360. I like my PS3 more though, but I like 360 GAMES more.
PlayStation Home 'not a priority right now' for Sony = Fail
Little Big Planet should have been the platform for Home. Home as it is right now is kind of uninspiring.
That's because it blows. I removed it from my PS3, waste of space,
I don't know if Sony IS or IS NOT working on HOME or really cares about it at this time. Maybe later, maybe not. I though even before it was released in BETA that it was garbage. I'd say the same thing if it came out for the 360. The Avatars on the 360 are almost worthless, though it's cool to see all the different ones with the 1 Vs 100 Game. People want to play GAMES, watch a Blu-Ray or stream Netflix, not walk about in a Virtual World. Talk about a waste of time and a boor fest. The long load times don't help. The whole concept I thought was flawed. You try it once, and that's it.
Now maybe on the PS4, it'd be built into the system from the start and when the system boots up, you start there, and there's no load times, and much more useful right from the start. As it was, it was to little to late.
Sony will never let home burn into flames. Sony just doesn't want the EXBOX to know what it has up it sleeve. You know how the wall can talk.