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[MarkMclovin]

Massive potential, massive Failure.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

A female was the first person i made on home as they at least looked normal.

Walking around is a hoot, as guys see your Avatar and try to say hello. :lol

asl? wanna dance???

 

[polyh3dron]

I love luring men by using an attractive female avatar, and then springing my ugly man-trap on them.

 

[MikeE21286]

Seriously, the trophy room is all I want and they can't give us that. :|

I wanted a trophy room and I wanted to be able to watch movies and/or listen to music on my PS3n the same space with my friends. Both things that were talked about but never delivered

 

[TheSeks]

the creepy gap advert avatars are the worst

They look better than what we got.

Granted, the clothes that are pay-for are starting to get somewhat better, but a ripoff. ($2 for a shirt, seriously?)

 

[androvsky]

I seem to recall Kaz Hirai ordering the Home team to essentially start over about a year or so after the original reveal. The main difference I remember was it switching the central plaza from the indoor park from the original trailer to the outdoor locations.

I get the impression from various rumors and leaks that there were a couple different groups in Sony fighting over what Home was going to be, and the feature list from the original trailer (streaming video, trophies) was from the group that lost. It's probably for the best though, since I suspect they were the ones wanting it to replace the XMB...

 

[Let me in]

I seem to recall Kaz Hirai ordering the Home team to essentially start over about a year or so after the original reveal. The main difference I remember was it switching the central plaza from the indoor park from the original trailer to the outdoor locations.

They need to rewrite the entire program. It's so slow... it chugs and who knows why. Even when I get the urge to go in and see what's new, half the time I get discouraged thinking about how I have to download each area over and over. The experience isn't seamless and it could be.

The reveal with the indoor plaza had features that made the product sound exciting and when the real thing hit it was pretty disappointing. With that being said, it's okay for checking out trailers and things and talking with other people. But for me, that's it.

 

[YoungHav]

Home effing sucks. I cracked the fuck up the 1st time I logged into Home. I logged in for the last time around Christmas '08 and swore I would only log in next Christmas. lol haven't been back since. I guess I will log in this month to see what's been added from that time. Disappointment though I'm glad its making Sony $$, that's all.

 

[Alpha-Bromega]

the only idea I had of home was what I read from a Game Informer from like 05'
it was such a cool concept from what I remembered, but I 'played' it not long after I got my ps3 and boy does it stink. somehow even more depressing than Second Life

 

[Norml]

Home is nothing special but is still the best avatar system on consoles.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

I don't get why people are dismissing trophy cases and such. Wasn't that the entire point behind the "trophy" branding? The name seems silly without them.

 

[Wolves Evolve]

The devleopment history is scary. Two competing groups of marketers at Sony Europe, two COOs competing for love from above by wresting control of a single software environment.

One of the reasons the final code doesn't work so well? Oh nothing much. Its just that it only uses two SPUs.

There was no design input. Only marketing needs piled on top of each other month to month, from different directions.

 

[duk]

good idea, horrible proof of concept, execution, development and marketing

 

[DMeisterJ]

Take far too long to boot into home, but apparently good things are happening... December was their larges month with 10 million people logging into home for an average time of 60 mins (From the Peter Dille interview with IGN). not sure if the two numbers are for December alone or not, but impressive nonetheless. :/

I imagine it's making Sony a small mint in advertising and micro-transactions.

 

[Agent X]

Home is nothing special but is still the best avatar system on consoles.

It may have the best avatars, but the avatar system could use a lot of work. I'd love it if you could use the Home avatars outside of the Home environment. It would make avatar creation seem so much more meaningful. I've discussed this in this post about Jeopardy! on PS3, and again when Wheel of Fortune was released. Here's what I said about it in the Jeopardy! post, with one sentence bolded for emphasis:

Now here's a game that might've been ideally suited for PlayStation Home avatars. We've heard that Home avatars might be usable in other games (outside of the realm of Home). People love to play as themselves in games like this, but they already went through the process of creating their own Home avatars; they shouldn't have to go through it again for a game that has realistic human avatars. The developers should have thought of that beforehand, but since they didn't, they should at least consider patching this feature in soon.

Let me give another example from another system. If I fire up Wii Sports, the game can populate my baseball team with Miis that my buddies have sent to my Wii system, or I might see them gathering in the background during a bowling game. How cool would it be if you could see your "friends" in the Jeopardy! audience cheering you on? Little personal touches like this can make a good game great, or even a mediocre game into something that's amusing. This was a missed opportunity, and if they don't patch it in soon enough (or implement it in the upcoming Wheel of Fortune), then it will continue to be a missed opportunity.

Wii has had this ability since launch. Xbox 360 has been doing this for a while too, despite introducing their avatars after Home. Why isn't PS3 on board with this concept?

The appeal need not be limited to game show games. There are other games popping up with this feature...on other systems. The Guitar Hero series is huge, and PS3 is the only one of the three major current-gen consoles that doesn't let you use custom avatars. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing will let you play as your custom avatars on Wii and Xbox 360, but only on PS3 is there a complete absence of avatars.

You might not like Home, or creating cute avatars, but kids and casual gamers love this stuff. If someone has a choice of getting a version of the game on Wii/Xbox 360 where he can "play as himself" or the version on PS3 where he cannot do this, then which do you think he's going to choose?

I love the PS3, I love the PlayStation Network, heck, I even like Home...but honest to goodness, the complete lack of avatar support outside of Home is seriously disappointing.

 

[grap3fruitman]

A female was the first person i made on home as they at least looked normal.
Walking around is a hoot, as guys see your Avatar and try to say hello. :lol

And then come the PMs and friend requests... ugh.

 

[Ranger X]

Home is still for me an horrible waste of space on a HDD. That is all.
Doesn't seem to take off that much either and Sony is quiet about it. I'd say it's a semi-fail.

 

[paperheart]

They could have also conjoined Home and the XMB together in some way. It's too disjointed, with Home just being an icon on the XMB. Bringing the avatars to the XMB like the Xbox 360 has could have been good. I'm just glad they didn't do what they were planning to do, making it to where Home immediately launches when you put your PS3 on. Yeah, it would have made people use Home (forcefully), but if having it like that didn't make it improve from what it is now, then it would have been rather blah.

 

[Norml]

It may have the best avatars, but the avatar system could use a lot of work. I'd love it if you could use the Home avatars outside of the Home environment. It would make avatar creation seem so much more meaningful.

That is a nice feature and Sony should put it in[I love using custom fighter in ufc but mostly because of the hometown being shown], but I still think all that Home does is much better than just a body replacement in a game.

 

[fernoca]

Home is nothing special but is still the best avatar system on consoles.

Depends on how you look at it.
As a big chat room, it's the only one of the main 3 consoles that does it.

But as actual avatars, as in representations of yourself.. You create a semi realistic looking copy of yourself (which looks creepy as fuck, and still doesn't look like you)..and you walk around talk to people, play some random games..in that space and that's it. In the other since both are basically cartoons..it's easier to pass one's creation as ourself, rather than the realistic look in Home.

Which brings the problem of implementation.. since there's no implementation ..relation to the games. At least that Avatars in 360 and the Miis on the Wii are implemented in gamercards, games, menus, leaderboards, etc. On Home, the most it does with some/few games is that some unlock stuff that you can use/wear/add to Home..to your space. So yo ustill need to connect to Home..and even bring friends if yow ant to brag about it.

Outside Home, you dont' see your avatar anyplace else..heck noone does. Which makes Home like somethign separate from the games and the PS3 and just a random application.

Some say that the lack of features is because it's free..so I guess we get what we paid for.

 

[Pandaman]

And then come the PMs and friend requests... ugh.

and the classic 'u have youtube?'

 

[CadetMahoney]

good idea, horrible proof of concept, execution, development and marketing

The idea was very good, such a shame it didn't deliver.

That is all. Doesn't seem to take off that much either and Sony is quiet about it.

Only until you ask them about it and then its how successful it is and how much money they're making off it. If it's "PR talk" then I put it in the same category as other PR talk such as "poor levels of stock" heh.

 

[Norml]

Depends on how you look at it.
As a big chat room, it's the only one of the main 3 consoles that does it.

But as actual avatars, as in representations of yourself.. You create a semi realistic looking copy of yourself (which looks creepy as fuck, and still doesn't look like you)..and you walk around talk to people, play some random games..in that space and that's it. In the other since both are basically cartoons..it's easier to pass one's creation as ourself, rather than the realistic look in Home.

Which brings the problem of implementation.. since there's no implementation ..relation to the games. At least that Avatars in 360 and the Miis on the Wii are implemented in gamercards, games, menus, leaderboards, etc. On Home, the most it does with some/few games is that some unlock stuff that you can use/wear/add to Home..to your space. So yo ustill need to connect to Home..and even bring friends if yow ant to brag about it.

Outside Home, you dont' see your avatar anyplace else..heck noone does. Which makes Home like somethign separate from the games and the PS3 and just a random application.

Some say that the lack of features is because it's free..so I guess we get what we paid for.

It does depend on how you look at it.I really don't care for a game face feature because all the system avatars look like crap and the games they are for are not my type.Sony should make use of the screenshot feature for regular avatars though.

 

[see5harp]

Sony still hasn't gotten Trophies right outside of Home IMO. Considering it already takes an unreasonable time to sync, then compare trophies with a friend, I don't see how a 3d space would be a good idea.

 

[msdstc]

I got a nice Galaga arcade machine for downloading and playing the namco arcade museum demo. Supposedly there were 3 more cabinets you could get from it too.

Of course I could never get it to actually work...Maybe it was a glitch idk, but I recall getting an error message or something when I actually tried to play it. It makes a nice decoration I suppose though.

Didn't you need to buy the game to play the full thing? Look I'm not looking for a ton of freebies, but an item of the week sort of thing, or a handful of arcade classic cabinets would definitely be interesting to me.

 

[kuYuri]

I think aside from trophy room its all there(well mp game launching isn't universal I guess). It sounded better on paper and video...but trying it for yourself it gets boring...of course, yeah...trophy room is what we all wanted. They could at least give a 3d trophy if you platinum a game, or maybe for some golds trophies.

There is universal game launching now and then there are some games that natively support it like SFIV.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

and the classic 'u have youtube?'

Is that a step up or down from myspace and facebook?

 

[Night_Trekker]

I asked about the video / photo in your own space over a year ago from Sony UK's head of Home and the answer was not surprising - they are not gonna allow people to show their videos, because they could show whatever porn etc and even though that's someones private space, they cannot allow that...which I can understand from Sony's perspective.

This is exactly what I thought would happen when the "feature" was announced :lol

 

[mollipen]

Home is nothing special but is still the best avatar system on consoles.

Different strokes for different folks; I think the Home avatars are some of the most god-awful ugly things I've ever seen come from a video game console. They're that shitty "let's try to be realistic but instead look like unnatural monstrosities" style of character design that kept me far, far away from things like Everquest, mixed with a huge supporting case for the uncanny valley argument.

Above every other reason I could have not to be thrilled by Home, the avatars are far and away the number one reason I have not one ounce of interest in this thing.

 

[Agent X]

Which brings the problem of implementation.. since there's no implementation ..relation to the games. At least that Avatars in 360 and the Miis on the Wii are implemented in gamercards, games, menus, leaderboards, etc. On Home, the most it does with some/few games is that some unlock stuff that you can use/wear/add to Home..to your space. So yo ustill need to connect to Home..and even bring friends if yow ant to brag about it.

Outside Home, you dont' see your avatar anyplace else..heck noone does. Which makes Home like somethign separate from the games and the PS3 and just a random application.

That's a good way of putting it. Since there's no use of avatars outside of Home, it makes Home feel more like a separate and disconnected application, rather than something that's integral to the PS3 or PSN. If avatars could be used outside of Home, then it would make Home seem more like an "essential" part of the PSN experience, rather than a separate fenced-off area.

As strange as this might sound, people would be more compelled to enter Home from time to time and explore what's available there, if they feel they could "get something out of Home" (literally and figuratively).

Some say that the lack of features is because it's free..so I guess we get what we paid for.

I disagree with this. Miis have always been free, and have been tightly integrated with the Wii experience from the get-go. Although Xbox Live requires you to pay to play online, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that their avatar system does not require the user to subscribe to the paid service.

This isn't a matter of being "free", it's a matter of Sony opening up Home avatars to their developers to use.

So, why haven't we seen this yet on PS3? Is it very difficult for game programmers to include code to support Home avatars? Did Sony have a change of heart, and decide they don't want avatars to be used outside of Home? Even first-party games haven't supported it yet, when they've had many opportunities to do so. If Sony isn't leading the way with avatar support, then third-party developers might not be inspired to do so either.

 

[Rubezh]

I was really excited about Home when I saw the presentation Phil Harrison gave during some Sony event (can't remember which one it was, might have been E3). Unfortunately, the lack of photosharing, video sharing and music sharing in apartments, no trophy integration and general focus of Home has made it a complete disappointment. I haven't been on Home for a while now so it may have changed, but it felt like Sony was taking it into a weird transaction style MMO with the paid clothing, paid premium homes and other pointless garbage that gamers don't want anything to do with.

 

[Kai Dracon]

This sums up my experience in Home:

Logged in for the first time.

Bleh'd at lifeless manniquin character that seemed scientifically engineered to represent an idealized SonyStyle (tm) customer.

Walked into a really nice looking apartment.

Went onto the balcony and looked down at beautifully rendered and designed bay and coastal city.

Suddenly wanted to go down into the bay and along the street and realized you couldn't.

Pondered that Home was just a handful of rooms showing you an appealing world just beyond their boundaries.

Logged out, deleted it, will never bother with it again.

There! No fuss, no muss.

 

[Equus Bellator Apex]

They'd be stupid to just walk from this thing.

 

[lowrider007]

Massive potential, massive Failure.

Pretty much.

The main thing that keeps me away from Home is all the loading between areas.

And also why do all the avatars look so miserable?

 

[Gaz Pwnage]

This sums up my experience in Home:

Logged in for the first time.

Bleh'd at lifeless manniquin character that seemed scientifically engineered to represent an idealized SonyStyle (tm) customer.

Walked into a really nice looking apartment.

Went onto the balcony and looked down at beautifully rendered and designed bay and coastal city.

Suddenly wanted to go down into the bay and along the street and realized you couldn't.

Pondered that Home was just a handful of rooms showing you an appealing world just beyond their boundaries.

Logged out, deleted it, will never bother with it again.

There! No fuss, no muss.

Pretty much, i played a few rounds of the EA racing game and bowling though lol

 

[conman]

Too many people at Sony with too many different ideas of what Home "should be" got their hands in it. As a result, Home ended up being brought down by a complete lack of direction.

All the most interesting stuff (trophy room, shared video streaming, etc) were probably too expensive and logistically complicated to bother with.

 

[Count Dookkake]

It sounds so depressing in execution compared to the awesome claims Sony was making before release.

Maybe they can salvage the good bits and keep more of their promises for their next system.

 

[carlosp]

I really dont get the hate for Home on GAF. I actually like home for what it is. Evertime i have some free time I log in to home and watch some trailer and check out the minigames and stuff. For some weird reasons watching the trailers in the Home cinema is much more fun then downloading them or watching them on youtube or what ever. You can always have some entertaining conversations in Home or just walk arround and look what other people do. It is always pretty crowded thanks to the non GAF PS3 users haha It is not a game, it doesnt want to be a game. I feel like GAF expected a game and got a social platform and started to hate.

Home is great for chilling out and just have some good time

 

[WasabiKing]

IWhat happened? The entire Home project seems to have had trouble. I wasn't in the beta, but it sounded like the project was at a stand-still for an entire year before a barebones version was released to the public. Even after all these months and a number of updates, the Home that exists today is not the product I imagined back when it was announced.

Say it with me

EUROPEAN

DEVELOPERS

 

[ChaoticBlue]

i deleted home off my ps3 a long time ago.

 

[conman]

For some weird reasons watching the trailers in the Home cinema is much more fun then downloading them or watching them on youtube or what ever.

Even better would be greater quantity and more recent trailers (closer to how the theater had initially been presented). Premiere trailers on Home for a few days, then move them to the PS Store. You'd attract more people and more interest. I might actually use it more often that way. Use it to stream live announcements and presentations (as had been initially envisioned).

I don't care if it's all "marketing"; just make it marketing that I care about.

 

[Dra-Q]

Massive potential, massive Failure.

Where is the "Internet in 3D"-pic when you need it?

 

[Ploid 3.0]

It might be making money but the software is just very slow. Game launching takes too long to enter the game, and to leave and go back to home. Booting home is too slow also.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Add me to the list of people who signed on once, made an Avatar, did the running man in people's face while they were waiting to bowl, then logged off and deleting it from my harddrive never to go back.

Oh, and the loading was horrid and made me not even want to start it up in the first place.

 

[carlosp]

Even better would be greater quantity and more recent trailers (closer to how the theater had initially been presented). Premiere trailers on Home for a few days, then move them to the PS Store. You'd attract more people and more interest. I might actually use it more often that way. Use it to stream live announcements and presentations (as had been initially envisioned).

I don't care if it's all "marketing"; just make it marketing that I care about.

They had some similar events. Like the intro of that CGI Resident Evil movie which made acctually buy the freaking movie (it was good, story wise better then the real movies). In Europe they also had a album or single launch party in Home which was a HHUUGGEEE success and great PR for Home. They need to polish the damn thing more. Maybe the will work on it once even more casual crowed enter in to Home. I dont know. I would love to. But seems like they get a lot of 3rd party support for all the apartments and stuff. They really need to market the damn thing better. It has so much potential. People just dont use it because they dont know it is there.

 

[TheFallen]

I really dont get the hate for Home on GAF. I actually like home for what it is. Evertime i have some free time I log in to home and watch some trailer and check out the minigames and stuff. For some weird reasons watching the trailers in the Home cinema is much more fun then downloading them or watching them on youtube or what ever. You can always have some entertaining conversations in Home or just walk arround and look what other people do. It is always pretty crowded thanks to the non GAF PS3 users haha It is not a game, it doesnt want to be a game. I feel like GAF expected a game and got a social platform and started to hate.

Home is great for chilling out and just have some good time

Wait, you have free time? There's games to play mang! The only times I've used Home was to show someone it because they were curious what it was, put on the Infamous outfit, and check out the Batcave. The problem with Home like many have mentioned before me, is that it's too much of a standalone product. It's slow and not integrated well within PSN. It requires you to have free time where you have absolutely nothing better to do. (like the above person)

 

[carlosp]

Wait, you have free time? There's games to play mang! The only times I've used Home was to show someone it because they were curious what it was, put on the Infamous outfit, and check out the Batcave. The problem with Home like many have mentioned before me, is that it's too much of a standalone product. It's slow and not integrated well within PSN. It requires you to have free time where you have absolutely nothing better to do. (like the above person)

Free time between games. I tend to never play a single game for more then an hour or hour and half. You know that way you can enjoy the game for much longer then just finish it in one single season. Besides i usually dont have to much time to play games :lol

 

[Brera]

Home is so depressing and soul destroying. It's like a landmine on the XMB.

"oh fuck I clicked on the blue Home logo not the PSN one! Abort! Abort!"

Que minutes wasted trying to get out of it. Biggest waste of HDD on the PS3. They should have killed it when they had a chance and lived with the 2-3 days of moaning on GAF, cos lets face it, no one gives a fuck. Not even GAF.

 

[SecretBonusPoint]

Say it with me

EUROPEAN

DEVELOPERS

Yes, Rocksteady and Guerilla sure did do an awful job last year! Foolish notion.

Home team was just a bad one, and couldn't realise the original promise. A smarter exec would have forced LBP and Home to fuse when both projects were shown alongside each other with one meeting universal applause and the other making people pull gurning faces.

 

[TheFallen]

Free time between games. I tend to never play a single game for more then an hour or hour and half. You know that way you can enjoy the game for much longer then just finish it in one single season. Besides i usually dont have to much time to play games :lol

Games last longer than 1-2 hrs, whether or not you finish it in a day or 2 months isn't going to make that experience any better or worse (unless you forget how to play or forget the story by the time you continue).

And if you don't have much time to play games you can probably blame that on spending your time going into home to watch trailers that you can access in less time using the internet. You should probably be more efficient with your time when it comes to enjoying your hobbies.