Ever sit in a IRC room alone?

There are tons of things you can do. You can play around with commands, start a trivia bot or try and get ANSI colors to work right with your nick.
...but without people in it, it is just that... an IRC channel.

I am not expecting much from home, but ultimately the one thing that PSN is missing is a way to actually meet other gamers. I've had my PS3 since launch and I don't have a single person on my list that I have met in a game.

That is what Home is for, not the entertainment value, but rather to meet others that have similar interests and actually play with them.

Patient

Sounds like a waste of time and money for Sony to invest in a project that largely seems to be going no where. It wouldn't surprise me to learn by years' end many aspects of Home will be canned, specifically the avatar/lobby stuff. Many of the core ideas can be achieved through a much simpler and faster method; and Sony has to realize that. My guess is the Home project will be redone to simply reflect all aspects of the PSN community/user interface. Home should be a place where all user specific content/features/etc are grouped together, allowing the gamer quick and easy access to everything they'd need or want while logged in. In short, cut the bullshit.

Replica23

I still think Home will turn out awesome whenever Sony releases it. I hope M$ copies them because I will not pay $50 a year for a lesser service.

Muisee

@jtyson: Give Totilo a break, he's trying to write about something with an impartial point of view, as well as making sure he doesn't get in trouble with Sony for raining hate on a service that isn't officially released yet.

Ahh.. the difficulties in life as a gaming reporter

eoaa

"Whatever it needs to make it a hit, I don't think it's in there - yet."

I can't be sure, but I think the "thing" it needs is... more people.

"...Home can't be accurately judged when no one but yourself is in it."

So we'll notch your post up as, I dunno... an inaccurate judgment. Hey, you gave it a shot and NOBODY can take that away from you!

jtyson

@Cloral: yes, the need to deliver. otherwise, this'll be a big ruh-roh

@Punkateer: you consider his "visit" of about 10 minutes a review? interesting...

@jitty9: i can take a few seconds...

kw4k

I think you can have group chat and jump right into partys with people on XBL..... wtf is the point of a laggy( which it will be as with all 3d games), 3d interface. When you can have a 2d text based interface that uses limited resources. @黒天使: Well the idea of home is to replace the XMB.... IE chat with friends, join in-game partys, and get other content. Home is also sonys answer to achievements and consistent friends lists.

deathtastic

Why don't they just scrap Home? I mean, it's not like anyone will really flip. Just bring in their in-game XMB and some trophies and maybe they'll stop whining.

I mean, I just want to play good games and I'm getting those. The other stuff isn't necessary. But, if it sells more units, then go for it Sony.

sascha23

Have you ever play an MMO and just before the server shutdown you are alone in the world, you just wanna leave, and obviously you cant judge Home in that state.

Veltis

@B1ooDshOt: you get that re-pairing thing if u use your headset with something other than the PS3 , if u pair it to just the ps3 , u never need to pair it again

黒天使

I am kind of against this preview. Like you all mentioned before its a closed beta. And normally those are stripped off some of the good parts (like any other closed beta). Eventually this will give some people the wrong impression that will last for a long time. It was not meant to be previewed as its not ready yet. Personally I am not a fan of virtual worlds but I took a trip to second life recently and was I surprised. A lot of people like it so most probably Home will be popular among that crowd. Mr. Totilo..please don't give some people the chance to label things they have not tried as "crap".

Dubdoob

why do people keep talking about home as if it were a mandatory GUI to replace their XMB , if you like the XMB then use , if you like Home then use it , Home is designed as a sort of community gathering , I'd call it a classy version of Second Life if i could , not an XMB replacement

黒天使

@B1ooDshOt: you're doing it wrong if you need to pair it each time you turn it on.

Punkateer

Well here come the Sony Fanboys with excuses as to why it isn't ready yet. It's "Alpha" not "Beta", that comment was a laugh, as if the person who made it is working on the final product himself.

Home will blow and will start to get the complaints once Sony announces the pricing that you will have to pay to outfit your apartment or add anything thats worth anything.

When will people learn that nothing in life is free and compaines even Sony are in business to make money. PSN will go Gold just like Live and offer a Silver free service with so many adds that to play you will have to purchase a subscription. The only reason Sony hasn't started charging yet and tailgating off of gamespy is the fact they don't have enough of a service to demand a price for it but once they start adding features the free PSN will go Bye-Bye.

bigd7387

@montanaxvi:

What is everyone's problem with this, you only have to download it once (like the article said) and then going there again takes like a few seconds

jitty9

@cringer8: It is a review sir mouthbreather, tis a review of a beta. You may question our reading skills yet your comprehension skills require additional time at summer school.

Punkateer

still in good-in-theory phase? HOME was never a good idea to begin with. that's the reason it is still in beta. that's the reason it keeps getting delayed. HOME will be sanyo's white elephant.. and where's 2.40?

the_answer

i know i might be in the minority for saying this......

although Stephen should get cool points for posting this, it almost certainly turn people off who were skeptical about it already (like myself). we dont know how recent the build is, and much less how it runs with a full community of gamers. (our commenter/beta tester on here has posted on that a bit) with things like ingame-xmb, and trophies coming soon, it is clear at least to those who will use common sense that sony is def trying to deliver on par with 360 (wether it will or not will be up for debate) . i would like to hear stories of this thing runnning from a public beta with useres interacting not just with home but with other users... in an official public beta. then, i believe we can make our sound judgement on how far along home has come, and has it been really worth the wait. the potential for it is there. let's wait for it to sprout its wings and fly first before we try to shoot it down. just my take on this.

zanzibarlegend

Sony, listen up. Just match XBOX LIVE in terms of online play and we'll be fine. Also, can you please make voice communicating a little easier on all of us? Pairing up a blue tooth headset each time is just not practical.

Thanks for listening and come again. The end.

B1ooDshOt

Don't care about Home, though I think it will have cool user applications. I just want the 2.40 patch to bring us all the cool stuff we should have had since the start.

PapaBear434

The sad thing is, if it is the first time you visit an area, then not only do you have to wait for loading you have to wait for DOWNLOADING. The areas need to have some sort of a background "push" feature to send the data for those soon to visit areas so that they will already be there when you go to leave whatever zone you are in.

Most of them run about 20-25 megabytes in size too, so the download isn't horrible but if your wireless is a bit slow it will seem like forever

montanaxvi

@BoringJob:

Hey buddy, do you want to get kicked out of the beta? You're not suppose to talk about anything that's in the beta, especially stuff this article hasn't already told us.

jitty9

This is exactly why it is a closed beta and why it's not open to the press, because now, ignorant people will start bashing it. (I'm in the Beta) YOU people need not worry about home right now or how the beta's going right now. All you need to worry about is how home ends up when it's open to the public.

jitty9

Delayed beyond my caring. I love my ps3 but I can't muster a "can't wait" attitude anymore. KZ2 is also rendered the same fate.

Punkateer

Home is a game launcher, not an entertainment center :P

Yeah, there's not a lot of cool stuff to do in it (yet) because that's not the point.. The whole idea with it is to allow you to create some kind of connection to the people you play with, you know, making friends and socializing, rather than just teabagging some random faceless gamertag.

Once outside developers start to deliver content, such as the Warhawk war room thing, it can be a great community building tool.

monkeybeach

i think what ppl are missing here is the ability to interact, converse and share experiences with other gamers through an appealing interface. as it currently stands, it's difficult to join up with others in certain online games, create clans/groups, or look for new gamers to socialize with unless you're already logged in that game. hopefully this will solve these issues with an easy approach. i know an in-game xmb will alleviate these concerns, but it will be missing that one thing home will provide; an open world, or forum if you will, much like we do on kotaku or any gamer forum out there, where we can discuss or compare or simply share anything gaming with one another. i, personally, love the idea just as i love logging into forums to see what's the latest buzz. all i hope for is that this loading issue will be addressed and that the areas are policed well, but justly

kw4k

I'll probably get kicked out of the Home beta for saying this but...

The beta, of which I've been a member since 07, has improved greatly from what it was. It is still not the in-house version that is shown at all the trade shows. The "beta" users get the leftovers from the previous build. So essentially, this is still an "Alpha" product, as someone said earlier. Features are being added monthly. Every time I've logged into Home Beta after a short hiatus, I've had to download an update.

But as Stephen has pointed out, there aren't many people on, simply because even the lucky few in beta have yet to find it, dare I say, "useful." When the beta first opened, it was a great community full of people. I made lots of gaming buddies the first two months of the beta. It's now gotten to the point where I can use it for a whole week before running into any one.

tlozwarlock

@Daz_Genetic: Couldn't've said it better myself. In the end, after all the pretty screenshots and promises and such, what it really needs to be is an effective lobby system for launching multiplayer matches. If it doesn't deliver on this than it is a failure regardless of what else it might have.

Cloral

@smuckersisgood: Home seems to me to be a platfrom for virtual ads...Sonys online service is free but it still has costs that need funding. The bad part is that it's good for Sony and marketers but really doesn't benefit the gamers in its current state, hence gamers scratching their heads why it is necessary.

This is most likely the reason why Sony is delaying it...it needs to be something that everyone will want to participate in because thats where the ad revenue comes from.

fenderfuel08

if it takes that long to load from one place to another...why would people use it when all they would want to do is watch a trailer? or play a game. not many people want to sit in front of a 5 minute loading screen every time they want to see their trophies or watch a movie.

Soopy

Lag/loading is going to totally kill any kind of entertainment that could be had from this. People are impatient. They won't stand for it.

I'm sorry but I just fail to see the point. What was that whole thing about console people saying one of the big advantages of consoles is you can just put a game in and play? This just seems so overbearing and unnecessary. The common console gamer doesn't want to watch digital avatars sit around a digital house chatting. They want to go into Madden, or Resistance, or whatever, and trash talk the person they're playing the actual game against.

I really think this service is going to crash and burn. Big time.

mva5580

Hmm -- an unnecessary 3D interface that will doubtlessly have tons and tons of advertising wrapped around a few so-so features, compounded with loading times. Even if they defeat the last issue, it's still a pass.

Still, I'll wait till its released -- in 2009 at the earliest -- before passing final judgment. I just don't understand what there is to be excited about with this.

DaPress

I've been saying this for a year. It's no fun being in an online universe wbeta where the features aren't implemented, they wipe out data regularly to change stuff and my friends aren't in the beta. So even if they had the features, I wouldn't be using them much.

What's funny to me is there is a roadmap for implementation that you can look at inside Home. But all it has said for over a year is "Coming Soon".

BoringJob

Doesn't sound cool at all.

I'm starting to think Home is really designed to benefit Sony and marketers rather than gamers and thats why the press and gamers alike are having a hard time seeing the point of it or that "special something". when I think about it, it seems that Home is no less than a platform for virtual advertising to make some extra cash.

It's kinda like when you go to see a movie at the theaters and these days your forced to see 10 minutes of ads before the previews even start. Big money for the theaters I'm sure, with no way for the target audience to change the channel or not pay attention. To me thats what Home seems to be...its disguised as a virtual world where you can interact with others but at the same time that virtual world is plastered with ads.

I really think Home is more about the ads than it is about the gamers and maybe thats kinda understandable seeing as Sony's online service is free and needs funding but at the same time gamers aren't getting why it benefits them...maybe because it doesn't.

fenderfuel08

I think some of the comments in here suggest people were reading this as a "review."

I can't blame Stephen, since he repeatedly reminded everyone that this is still very much in Beta.

I guess I have to blame our public school system. Reading comprehension is severely lacking on the internet.

We'll see what Home is about once it's released.

cringer8

This kinda thing reminds me of the various social networking websites. Yea, it's got some neat media implementation, but it'll live or die based on what people put into it.

dry-roasted-peanuts

I dont have a ps3 yet, but to me, this sounds completely unnecessary. Correct me if im wrong ps3 owners, but cant you already do all this chat, party up and stuff from the xmb? It just seems very redundant. Not trying to start a flame war or nothin. i was just wondering what the appeal is. Thats all.

smuckersisgood

Once you come to the fact Home will ALWAYS be in BETA, you might enjoy the thing more.

Vanguarde

Even if everything worked perfect it sounds lame. Why would I want to walk to a theater to see a trailer when i could easily and far more quickly select it from a simple menu. Yes yes seeing an avatar must be grand but i like things now...if i wanted to go somewhere I'd go outside and get in my car.

parad0x360

It is boring. A bunch of people dancing around doing nothing. Zzzzz

360Witz

Well once it fills up with people and the customisation aspect is more opened up and that loading is taken care of it should show some promise....I mean hopefully it should

The beta doesn't have all the cool features that should be in the final release though, like that thing where people who enter each other's "home" can stream the hosts music and videos from their HDD, and theres supposed to be pic frames you can put up in your room and videos you can put on the tv's and stuff, so its still something to look forward to and the finished article should be special

excel_excel

I have a feeling that beta testers don't actually have the latest version of Home. A good reason for that would be to prevent press leaks like the one we are witnessing now.

In all likelihood, the beta is just being used to make the networking bullet proof, while the the actual CURRENT version is being tested in-house. This would make the most sense since Sony is banking on Home being a bit hit and be perfect first time out, this would be the best way to keep it under wraps until the big unveiling.

cduran02

Aw, come on. Break down the fourth wall a little. I want to know what happened when you were "caught" using Home. Or weren't you?

Dirk Dorkelson

@BtownDesignGuy: Yea I don't get it either. I mean how many times have you been playing a game and had to get from point A to point B and started rolling or jumping because you were bored. If they are strictly doing this as a Second Life type hangout I can maybe understand that (I wouldn't play it personally but I understand why some would) but if they think most people would like to walk to a virtual lobby instead of going through a menu screen to start playing a game they are nuts. Once the "new cool thing" shine wears off I imagine this will just turn into another place for people to cyber.

liquid_kore

@karasu is my homeboy: Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. If this thing is straining to load areas smoothly with very little or no server strain, then I'd assume the code itself is not going to scale well. A gaggle of users would not be the best thing for HOME, which is funny, of course, seeing as that's exactly what HOME was designed for.

Sounds like a disasterpiece right now.

wild homes and gardens

@VixDiesel: "going to be" means its currently NOT worth it, their placing hope in sony, something sony has been asking people to do with the ps3 in general since day 1... i love MGS4 im about 50% through it but that and KZ2, but hell the only reason i really got it was a cheap Bluray player... but thats besides the point

phantam

I hate to point out the obvious, but the reason it's not open to the press yet is because it's not ready. So, I'd withhold any judgments until they actually invite everyone in.

The game hasn't changed much in the last month(s) so I assume they have gone back to do some planning. The potential is there, but I'm on the wait and see list.

AdeptVoice

home would be great if everyone had 40mbit FIOS ... sadly they dont and loading screens will be a major down fall ... but as i said before, i want to play real games, not walk around to a theater to walk a trailer or walk to a room to see my awards, or go to a car to play launch a game... im sorry but its just a fact ... its a gimmick, probably a bigger one than even the sixaxis WAS

phantam

Any yet people who I know who are in the beta say it's going to totally be worth it. Sure you were looking at the most current beta?

VixDiesel

i want to get into my games! i dont wanna walk around just to get to a game.,. ill stick with the xmb

phantam

@Daz_Genetic: I don't think "the people" will help some of the problems, like it loading everywhere you go whenever you go.

But yeah, obviously a social game needs the social part. Well, maybe not so obvious - Monster Hunter does just fine on PSP - but this isn't really a fair look at Home, I agree.

karasu is my homeboy

I have a feeling that by the time Home is up and running to a very high standard with all the features the community wants, it will be more in time for the PS4.

I always have, and still think Home is a great idea. I still think it will be a huge success.

If there's really going to be the entire userbase using the service however, Home will blow away Second Life or WoW with the amount of users. Due to this, I think more RAM and sheer power will be needed to make this viable for 50 million people, say.

Krondonian

If you build it, they will come...

DukeOfPwn

sadness I was really looking forward to home cus I will just finish work and go home ...

lilaliendog

@Daz_Genetic: good point. that may be the element it was lacking in his run through. as I said in my comment....it has already been improved a years worth and that work will show when it is FINALLY released....in 2012

SilkRevolver

I never really got the point of Home. But then I never really got the point of Second Life, either. I mean... what do you do in there that makes a 3D environment actually intuitive?

Travelling across a 3D environment takes a fair amount of time. A lot more time than, let's say, surfing the 2D interface of the Nintendo Channel or the Wii channels interface.

I mean, I own both Wii and PS3, but all I'm saying is... what does Home do that the XMB doesn't already do better?

BtownDesignGuy

@Daz_Genetic: I think you're right. When it has more people, it will have that homey, World of Warcraft feel.

Zombie_Crunch

I have a PS3 and honestly could care less about home it sounds stupid give my in game xmb and a friends list dont make me walk to my friends houses to play with them stupid idea if u ask me

ddollar

I don't know why everyone is so hyped for "Home" it looks like it will get boring in less then an hour.

Murderdolls

Well.....this beta is from early 2007 right? they have already improved it by a years worth, and I don't think that they have updated the beta since it's release. I am still excited about HOME, but it does need some sort of UMPH to make it what it should be

SilkRevolver

Well its a darn shame, even though i don't have a PS3, this looked very promising. Well, at least they are giving it time, considering better ideas and ironing out creases, the last thing PS3 owners need is bad service and a bad implementation. Hopefully they will do something similar with the PSP, i haven't seen any love for that console.

FlagshipFighter

If new ideas are being considered, that is an Alpha, not a Beta. Beta releases are supposed to be feature-complete, and only needing testing for bugs and incompatibilities. Of course, Google has helped confuse people on what exactly beta means...

Home sounds exactly like what I thought when I originally heard about it - an inefficient way to view all the same content you can get from the XMB. But I guess it's supposed to make it fun?

thejokell

Hm, that's disappointing to hear, to say the least; sounds like another victim of another overly ambitious project ran aground midway due to poor project management. =(

Datheron

Of course it's missing that special something. That something you refer to is the people.

Until this is open to the public, home will always seem redundant, but when gamers start using it in the way they want to use it, then Sony will be forced to adapt the service to the needs of the users.

If home works as advertised, (ie. meet up with random people, chat for a bit, and then choose a game to play, launching directly into that game) then it will be invaluable. If not, then I'm not sure the point of it either.

Daz_Genetic

Sounds teh crappz. I think that they need something else to try rather than "Home."

udiie

@黒天使: Wow. That's... wow. What makes no sense is that at the start, when they start playing what I believe is some sort of ... pre release of FINAL FANTASY XI Online, they're at the train station in Balamb, in FINAL FANTASY VIII, on the freaking PSOne. What's up with that? That makes no sense.

It's like they meet up in FFVIII, and then start playing XI Online. That ain't right.

Anyway, PlayOnline obviously hasn't turned into anything like that, as the only thing I've seen to do with it is FFXI's "PlayOnline Viewer" and "Tetra Master", the card game from FFIX (I would've preferred FFVIII's "Triple Triad.")

I kind of hope that Home doesn't turn out to be another PlayOnline, because I think it'd be kind of cool to log on as some weird li'l avatar, and go watch trailers on the PS3. I don't have a PS3 yet (I'm getting one mid/late July) but Home was one of the things I was looking forward to.

NobleArc, The Lazy Canadian

@Daz_Genetic: Very true. When it's fully populated, it will be a lot better, and I think there's an update coming really soon, too... I've talked to people in the beta, and they say it's been improving ever since they started it, so I'm sure by the open beta, they'll have it ready for the public.

bobtheduck

@Jelster: agreed

SilkRevolver

@eoaa: Well, I'm just trying to understand what the point of writing this quasi-review of the Home beta was if, in the article, you discredit the opinion you're in the middle of explaining. Surely you can agree that it's kind of puzzling.
I'm not trying to be a hard-ass, but it definitely made me say "Huh?".

He's got all week to write other posts, so let's step back and let the man do his thing, yea?

jtyson

Home sounds like an interesting experiment and a logical extension of social networking and online interaction. I applaud Sony for attempting to merge those ideas together.

For those saying it is unnecessary I'll point out it is not going to replace your XMB so why the concern. I don't play WoW but it doesn't mean many others don't find it the pinnacle of gaming. Home will appeal to those who want to use it and probably on many different levels.

It's also worth mentioning the atypical gamer fear of change or innovation. Some of you are obviously reincarnated witch hunters, burn anything out of the norm! There, there, go lap up your latest franchise +1 incarnation and it's samey bland gameplay wrapped in sparkly graphics and a massive marketing budget.

No, I see Home as offering several avenues for virtual interaction. As an interface it is poor but I don't think that is the primary intention. Instead it is a means to further community and interaction beyond chat msgs and voice it could find success. Thinking of watching a keynote in a virtual crowd with others beats the shit out of watching it on your own in a web browser window. Likewise the content sharing could bring a virtual gamers movie night on where you can kick back and see a film with friends that could be hundreds/thousands of miles away.

People just need to stop hiding under their security blankets and open their imaginations a little. These are games, they are meant to be fun and stupid and bring you enjoyment, I obviously missed the bit where it became about as much fun as a moody teenager.

Jelster

@sascha23: I want home.,....but not until it is ready...and aparently the Beta version is not. read "BETA"

SilkRevolver

Some people here are just plain stupid and don't know a single thing about Home.

For one, it was never meant to replace the normal operation of PSN, its an addition to it. Home allows people to come together randomly and thats something that even the XBox360 can not do right now.

You will never have to open up Home to play a game if you dont want to. But if you want a place to find other people to play against, Home will be a much better option than random matchmaking of XBL.

Viet0ne

@tlozwarlock: how did you get into the beta in the first place?@bigd7387: you, my good sir, are an xbox fanboy.

SilkRevolver

Home is going to be a blow out.

Sony is making it all hype yet its going to be nothing, it is going to be like playing WOW in Lagforge (I really do not remmeber the actual name for the head place).

There will be so many people in one area that you will move to take two steps it will freeze, and you will end up on the other side of the room.

Jamaces

@Patient:

damn i didnt see your post til after i posted, you pretty much summed up what i was getting at lol.

demonknightinuyasha

i think people are looking at home all wrong. Don't think of it as "what does this do that x console interface doesn't do already?" think of it as "a very pretty tricked out myspace", because from the sounds of it that's really what it's going to be. Now think of how ridiculously popular myspace and facebook and the like are. I mean of course not every ps3 user is going to be interested because not every ps3 user is into sites like myspace, just as every myspace user isn't a ps3 owner, but in either case there are still plenty of ps3 owners out there that are into things like myspace (hell I've been on there like 5 years now, even rolled my saving throw against becoming emo! :D, and own a ps3).

I think it will do fine when it comes out. I'm glad they're actually taking the time to get it right instead of just going with the "push it out now patch it later" ideology.

demonknightinuyasha

I'm more afraid that Sony's Home and Propaganda will go down the PlayOnline route , in case no one remembers , i uploaded their old Promo LOL

+ Watch video

黒天使

They should just scrap this thing while they still can. It's not too late! Most people (save for a privileged few) will never know how bad it was! Abort!

CarlitosColon

@Patient: exactly. there's huge potential for growth here. as a matter of fact, i dont have any1 i know other than those i personally know. this will change all that

kw4k

@thejokell: I dunno if I'd say Beta == Feature Complete. Specs may be all layed out, but in my experience, the Beta phase of a project can be anywhere from 25% to 100% Feature Complete in terms of implementation.

I'm reminded of an old military axiom: Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy. The same can be said of Beta. If it's a good beta, then specs and features change based on the feedback of beta players and internal testers: rubber meets the road, people get to see what you've been plotting behind the scenes and things change.

It seems to me that what Home is waiting for is all dependent on other parts of the SCE family of companies and external developers. I would expect that when 2.4 hits and PS3 games have their own brand of "achievements," you'll see a bit more movement in Home. I've also heard rumors of game specific lobby areas within Home. This also requires developer support outside of the Home team.

Lets try managing our expectations a little bit. Home is a HUGE project and it isn't even isolated to one team. Not everybody that works for SONY sits in the same building, or even works on the same timeline. :)

cable83

Home has taken a thousand different rewrites since its original beta offering. I have been a part of the private beta from nearly the beginning and it is not even close to being the way I think they want it to be. Its still an idea in development.

Cole

i'm in the home beta.
since day one.
it's like a big empty room with a few people standing there.
epic shit.

AssassinTRIP

@bobtheduck: Everyone keeps saying, when its populated with more people. I don't understand that reasoning. If there's nothing to do in HOME, no amount of people will change that.

HOME has the opportunity to become interesting if they can provide the right kind of content. Until then, no dice.

Philudo

as someone that is in the home beta.....i can't really talk about it.

i will say that i agree with the posts that say that say that it's still too early to tell if Home will be "teh fail" sure, most want sony to fall on their face again. you know, to wash that taste of MGS4 being an amazing gaming experience out of detractors' mouths. Home is really a good idea in the vein of being an actual gaming community, rather then just talking shit to people in matchmaking before a game. the concept of meeting real people virtually is cool, if executed correctly. it should be like here on kotaku. if i read something funny or interesting from someone (basically something that's not just flame-bating or fanboy-rific) i add them and try to sent them a message about it. at the very least, i ask them to add me on PSN. i don't really like playing with strangers if i can help it, and people on this site are, for the most part, cool people. that's the thought behind Home, i think.

PS3 Home; believe......in a (possible) douchebag-free zone (for a while)

jfx316

It's mainly a promotional vehicle, otherwise a virtual world with constricted and sanitized freedom where communication will most likely be filtered, just like in the PLAYSTATION Blog, and where freedom of expression is constrained to the family-friendly and mainstream presets of Sony.

Social networking is limited not to the small demographic of PS3 owners but to the even more minuscule user base of HOME. If the company was going for something like Facebook or MySpace, they should have made HOME a PC-based app. Like free MMOs from China and Korea, it would have been a more effective advertising effort, perhaps even convince audiences to purchase a PS3 with HOME-featured content.

ChiChi_BBQ

@Philudo:

Funny, until you add people to read and reply to your comment it is also pretty useless and boring. Now it just looks kinda dumb and pointless. :)

Content can be a draw, much like this post made you click through to the comments, but ultimately the bigger enjoyment comes from the interaction and discussion with others. Sony and hopefully game developers will add that content to draw people together. Ultimately if Sony can provide the core tools for everyone to interact then Home's success will rest on whether it is actually something the market really wants.

Jelster

@SilkRevolver

I'm a long-time GAP member and Beta participant, was included in the first round of beta invites may 07.

tlozwarlock

It's an interface, not a game. It will only work with other users and the developer content.

It's sort of like being the first one on Facebook and wondering why it's so boring. There's not much to do on a social network without anyone.

keyrat

I am in the Home beta as well. I check in every once in a while. The Loading is only once, and also for every area you haven't visited yet there is a lengthy install!

Anywhos, Sony has already said nurmous times what we current Beta tester see for Home is vastly different that what they have developed internally. For whatever reason they are releasing stuff to us slowly in the beta. Perhaps they've all but given up on Beta and have gone right into the reorg they are doing for Home to push it out for public beta later this year is my guess. It's been a long time we have seen Home updated.

nine07

When will kids understand that HOME has nothing to do with in-xmb or voice chatting.

devilhunterx

It sounds like a neat little thing to do when you're bored and don't feel like playing a real game, but I just hope that it'll have the functionality that it needs, but the functionality doesn't need home. For example, inviting people into games, I don't want to load up home, find my friend, invite him, and THEN load a game, but it'd be nice to be able to be ABLE to load a game straight from home.

Talleh

I don't think Home is ever gonna see the light of day by the way things look.

VMars

Home is the new VRML.

Remember when everyone thought internet shopping was going to be a virtual mall?

Fryfat

@smuckersisgood: Yeah but the possibilities are endless if sony does this the right way. What if you could have a friend over for a movie. But instead of him coming to your house(Not because he's lazy maybe he's a couple states away)He can visit you in PS Home. SO you pop in your dvd and all the friends in your "VIRTUAL" Home can watch the movie and at the same time have a live chat so it feels like your right there with them.(Maybe not super real feeling)
You could change the movie to fill up your entire screen. Futhermore you could share music and pictures. I mean if Sony gives us the options Home will be Amazing but It's up to us the users to use it and it's up to sony to make us want to use it.

Barf#1

If home was a sort of guild house (for lack of a better phrase) for my group of friends with a space or room for each of us that'd be kind of cool I think. How useful/practical would it be? Like how much time would we actually spend standing around in it? Probably not much. But if I could walk into my friend's room and view their random cool items from games they've played (Hey look, Cloud's FF7 sword, or look Solid Snakes Mustache) I think it'd actually be pretty cool.

Because if, in theory you played that game also, or even better together, you could nostalgically reminisce about the great moments of older, previous games. Which is what my friends tend to do when me meet in RL and are having a couple drinks. So if I could put a model of my championship winning Gran Turismo car, or the hide of a Brachiosaur, some kind of big culmination or overcoming of a challenge, I'd like that, personally.

If it was "pick your choice between a stylish Taco Bell chihuahua figurine or Coors Light Ultra Frozen Deluxe dispensor" ...then I wouldn't be quite so interested.

Zeus

@SilkRevolver: @tlozwarlock: Same thing here. Long time member. Pretty much any time there's a beta or something cool pre-release for Sony, I get an invite.

I was a beta tester for Everquest on PS2, as well. I'm assuming I'll beta test SOCOM soon. And Maybe KZ2 and I'm almost certain Resistance 2.

BoringJob

@jitty9: Oh no! I could be kicked out of something I haven't gone into in months! I stopped using it because, as I've said, there's no features and none of my friends got in.

What next? You're going to take away my Wii? I haven't turned that on since the second week after Brawl came out.

BoringJob

@tlozwarlock: what is GAP and how did you get the invite?

SilkRevolver

Well, Sony's philosophy since the PSP and PS3 is all about potential. As long as the product isn't out and disappoint (Lair), there still is potential.

What I've always thought about Home is that it's as good as WWE smackdown vs Raw's locker room. You get to customize your room into your liking, you have a trophy room on the wall, you have a computer to access stuffs. I barely even do anything there, except to read emails and check the wwe website and read the magazine when the story advances.

if the loading persists, Home would be really useless

mcool93

@ddollar:
I think you nailed it on the head. I have never been at all excited about "Home". It's such a gimmick.

ch777p

@SilkRevolver

Gamer Advisory Panel, a "VIP" section of the Playstation Underground where people who've been long time Playstation gamers get special offers, contests, and invites to Betas. I get Beta invites because I've been in the GAP since shortly after its inception and have been beta-ing games and services for Sony since the early PS2 days. I got the invite via Email and then downloaded the client from the PS Store.

@BoringJob

I'm guessing there'll be a mp Resistance 2 beta before too much longer since they're adding a lot to the mp (like ranking, according to Game Informer).

tlozwarlock

@BoringJob: cool....but what is GAP? I don't expect to join something I most likely couldn't get into but how did you people get in?

SilkRevolver

lame

YourAnthony

@nine07: Hiroken:

Nice to see some fellow GAP members here. At times, it seems as if we are nonentities.

tlozwarlock

I'm also in the GAP and the Beta. I was invited to the GAP after being an active PS Underground member for a long time.

As for the beta, it was really fun when there were people around. Now everyone's bored because none of the Game Lobbies exist yet, and bowling and dancing get old, fast.

HOME will be awesome if the game lobbies are awesome, period.

Hiroken

Same here, been a GAP Member for years. I was in the Warhawk beta, had an invite for the Metal Gear Online beta through it was well. It's also how I got into Home beta probably. To be honest, I didn't realize I was a GAP invitee until someone at my old job told me about it. So I went and checked, told them I had an invitation but forgot it, and next thing I knew, I had an email the next day with a GAP invitiation.

I am guessing you have to be a long standing Playstation Underground member to be invited to GAP, which I also was since it first started up after PSOne was out.

nine07

Im still confused on the whole "Home" thing =/ seems a lot like second life imo. I mean if you really wanted to watch movies with your friends... invite them over =_= other than that its just another way to express yourself... idk I dont really understand...

hrabbit

Im looking forward to home, have for a while, but the features that make me excited is customising my avatar, my apartment, using it as a cool 3d chat with friends AND using the features that combines home with games. Its all going to be there and all looks good. I don't see where all this complaining is stemming from

ryivanV2

@kw4k: I agree wholeheartedly with that! The messaging abilities of the XMB are adequate for those friends who are already on your friends list, but it doesn't do anything in terms of being able to meet additional friends. I'd love to be able to meet people who have similar games as me (in specified Home game rooms such as a GTA4 lobby if such a thing existed) that I could get to know first before playing online with. Would be good to be able to find like-minded people (i.e. not immature knobheads who ruin games) before entering a game, so I'd definitely have a use for home.

sturace

They've updated quite a lot in the beta phase. You probably should call it more of an alpha than a beta because they change things all the time. Though not all the things they've talked about it having are in it yet. Also, it only loads the area the first time you enter it and after that it is near seamless travel to and from places. And that's all I have to say. . . about that.

Lachoy

in game xmb > Home

As long as they can launch firmware 2.4 in time, I don't think many people will care about Home still being delayed. Then again, with all the delays, I'm pretty sure no one cares about Home PERIOD. It's not a selling point anymore and the fact that it has been in development THIS LONG makes it rather Duke Nukemy Foreverish.

Infallible

I can't wait to break into folks' virtual houses and spray tags and steal their... what, we can't do that? Where's the fun in that?

mariospants

I was an early adopter of the PS3. I was jazzed about the fact the hardware was superb. When I read about the HOME, I thought the advanced hardware would allow them to outdo Second Life as a 3D environment. As a Lonely Guy Nerd, I had high hopes for the social aspects of the program. The first few games I purchased didn't have six-axis support and I don't want to drive a car with my thumb. So here I am with this expensive console, no games that I like, and the one piece of software that tickled my imagination is etherware. Because the average user's upward connectivity is much slower than their downward, I assumed that Sony would provide a lot of storage for the HOME users that could be efficiently deployed when someone entered your space. It looked like Sony wanted to knock off SL with a 3D environment that wasn't so much about money and more about creativity. I was very disappointed that the rollout was so slow (years instead of months) and sad I wasn't a beta user. From the beta user's comments, it looks like I wouldn't have had that much fun in the beta anyway. At this point I have lost faith that I will get any real value out of my PS3 at all. I like elite hardware, but I seem to have wasted my money this time around investing in the PS3. My hopes for hardware assisted 3D have been pretty well dashed at this point.

douglas_goodall

im still waiting for home

lil.will.call.of.duty.boss

im tired of waiting for home its been so long that i nearly forgot about it.i cant belive they are making us wait even longer.

lil.will.call.of.duty.boss

Awesome, seriously cannot wait for the release of HOME, It's been a long wait so far and I hope for Sony's sake it is worth it.

NamelessGamer

i always thought that this was a stretch for sony! but the whole idea for the ps3 was stretch and it worked out beautifully. if "home" gets it together it could be the best and one of the most innovative things to come to gaming. let's hope sony can shine once again.

psychomantis85