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Sony to launch PlayStation Home in October

lancubap

Member
Gamesindustry said:
Initial download to be "under 500MB"

Sony has announced plans to launch its ambitious PlayStation Home online service - announced at GDC last week - this October.

The initial download is expected to weigh in at "under 500MB", with subsequent patches "hopefully" integreated via a streaming solution "that makes them negligible".

A closed beta phase for around 15,000 users will take place between April and August, with an open beta for around 50,000 operating between August and October.

That's according to a "third party relations" question-and-answer PDF uncovered on Sony's developer website, which sheds further light on the service unveiled during Phil Harrison's GDC keynote.

Certain Home features are likely to be accessible via PlayStation Portable and mobile phone in some form, Sony said, while users can also expect to visit paid-for special events, and experience increasing levels of integration with the console's more traditional features as development accelerates.

For example, it will be possible to track down friends easily from day one, but users will only be able to seamlessly launch into multiplayer games together once Sony has finished coding that functionality.

Another element that will take time is the environment's persistence. "Currently Home is not a persistent world, so when you leave Home, all of your possessions go with you. For instance, it is not currently possible for other users to visit your apartment while you're not there," Sony said.

"We are working on the persistent aspect of Home, and expect to implement it in the long term."

Advertising will apparently be kept to "palatable" levels, but will be prevalent, while content auctions, downloadable content sales, premium events and other initiatives are on the way.

"If you consider Home to be a simulacra of the real world then most goods and services found within the real world could theoretically be replicated within Home," the PDF notes.

Indeed, there are plenty of suggestive comments along those lines. "It will be possible to develop small demo-areas within Home that promote new titles, or to re-publish an old IP as mini-game within [a] Home Space," for example.

"We believe that there will be ample opportunities for businesses and individuals alike to generate significant revenues from the Home platform," the PDF later adds, with user-to-user auctions a likely inclusion. There will be restrictions on sharing, however, with media-sharing off-limits for obvious reasons

Sorry if old. Great news. Thanks to Gamesindustry.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
October eh?

Assuming they can even hit the date they set (who can these days), that is still too too far away.
 

theBishop

Banned
RubxQub said:
October eh?

Assuming they can even hit the date they set (who can these days), that is still too too far away.

I agree, its a long wait, but you'd be surprised how many people don't know about it yet.

It probably won't be in the collective, PS3-owning conscientiousness until mid-summer, when its closer to launch.
 

jiggle

Member
lancubap said:
A question: isn't 500 MB too much ?


A PS3 demo runs u 500mb. And Tekken 5, GT HD goes above that.

So no.




It's good to have a 60gb version (or upgrade to one) ^^
 
lancubap said:
A question: isn't 500 MB too much ?


Erm no...I mean yeah....I mean no.... I mean maybe.....erm what was the question again?

The question doesn't make sense, too much in what context?
 

lancubap

Member
travisbickle said:
Erm no...I mean yeah....I mean no.... I mean maybe.....erm what was the question again?

The question doesn't make sense, too much in what context?

Too much in the sense that requires a lot to download it and in comparison to others downloads. But the question has been already answered, so thanks anyway.
 
travisbickle said:
Erm no...I mean yeah....I mean no.... I mean maybe.....erm what was the question again?

The question doesn't make sense, too much in what context?

In terms of speed to load for example. It isn`t going to load in 2 seconds at that size.
 
lancubap said:
A question: isn't 500 MB too much ?
Too much for what...? A hard drive is standard on PS3 and 500MB isn't going to break the bank there.

The Innocent X said:
In terms of speed to load for example. It isn`t going to load in 2 seconds at that size.
It doesn't need to load the entire thing all at once, it just needs to load what's being used at any given time.
 

jiggle

Member
The Innocent X said:
In terms of speed to load for example. It isn`t going to load in 2 seconds at that size.




Because you load THE ENTIRE HOME, all 500mb worth of data, at the same time?
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
The Innocent X said:
In terms of speed to load for example. It isn`t going to load in 2 seconds at that size.

...what?

Anyway I was more interested in the open beta and the fact that they eventually want a persistent world pieces of info.
 

The Jer

Member
For those too lazy to read the whole article or the FAQ:


closed beta: April-August

open beta: August-October

launch: October
 

Steroyd

Member
In terms of speed to load for example. It isn`t going to load in 2 seconds at that size.

/sarcasm hat on

OMG I've been playing 4GB games for years, and they take 10 seconds to load.

/boggles
/sarcasm hat off

If your talking about Download speeds by then the background downloading SHOULD be in the PS3 well before then making speed to download almost negligible.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
Load times could be a deal-breaker with HOME for me actually.

What if it takes an annoying 10 seconds just to get into HOME? Not to mention the loading from room to room? I'm disliking Motorstorm more and more because the loading times are all sorts of crazy (great online play tho).

It's not very convenient if it takes you a total of a minute or two just to reach the movie trailer lobby. Who wouldn't want to just go Video>>>Movie Trailers in the XMB?

I'm still trying to figure out what the advantage to HOME is over just a menu based system. While I like the idea of it, I'm not so sure I'm going to be jumping in HOME all the time to randomly meet people. Maybe the PS community will embrace it and actually use it as a way of forming up for specific games, which could be cool.

Having a war-room for your clan, inviting everyone in, and watching replays of your matches in your private space could actually be really cool...but what're the odds of this happening?

I never liked the Sims...and maybe thats my beef :)
 

Wollan

Member
The whole Home install is 500MB. That means that each room takes only a very small part of the memory and loads that directly from the HDD. I would think the loading of assets is pretty much close to non existent compared to actually connecting you to every user in each room you go to. Anyways, looking at the demonstration it takes less than ten seconds to relocate to a new room.
 
RubxQub said:
It's not very convenient if it takes you a total of a minute or two just to reach the movie trailer lobby. Who wouldn't want to just go Video>>>Movie Trailers in the XMB?
The Virtual PSP should take you there quickly. Plus, I wouldn't worry about load times... if it's on the HDD, how long can it be? I guess it'll depend on your internet connection as well.
 

Wollan

Member
I think it will have all the features demonstrated ready for the beta next month. Not the sports lounge (EA thingy) since that was a example but I'm expecting the rest shown.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
BlackGoku03 said:
The Virtual PSP should take you there quickly. Plus, I wouldn't worry about load times... if it's on the HDD, how long can it be? I guess it'll depend on your internet connection as well.
I agree, being able to port around will be useful, but once you're even at the lobby, you have to run around to find what you want.

Who knows how it'll be implemented when all is said and done, but with what I was shown so far, I'm not seeing the convenience.

I want to be wrong!
 

Wollan

Member
It's all about the community. If you simply just want to watch a movie file why don't you do so in the XMB instead of going into Home?
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
Wollan said:
I think it will have all the features demonstrated ready for the beta next month. Not the sports lounge (EA thingy) since that was a example but I'm expecting the rest shown.


It says in the article it wont have the jumping into games thing....it also says your objects won't be persistant...so how is that in any way all the features? It sounds like it wont even have Second Life level functionality next month.
 

maxmars

Member
jiggle said:
Because you load THE ENTIRE HOME, all 500mb worth of data, at the same time?

Can I download the bathroom first? You know, just in case I need it before everything else is in place.. :lol
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
Wollan said:
It's all about the community. If you simply just want to watch a movie file why don't you do so in the XMB instead of going into Home?
That's what I'm saying.

I don't see people spending a ton of time in HOME just putzing around talking to people and doing random things. I'd rather be...playing games?

If I have free-time, I'm going to want to be playing games on my PS3 (or other consoles), not talking to people. I'll talk to people in the games I play. I'll get my media from direct sources.

This seems like a casual feature, on a non-casual console (read: $600).
 
I agree with Wollen as far as what will be available come launch. I believe the first incarnation of PS Home will be xbox live-ish in nature but wrapped in a 3d matrix form. However the years going forward I believe will bring some very very interesting innovations. The possibilities with things like broadcast events, movies premiering in the Home theater at the same time they premier out in the real world could also be something we could POSSIBLY see.

Either way we just have to wait and see, but at least Sony is showing they are listening to their customers more and are taking initiatives on many fronts. I applaud that effort and hope that it makes MS and Nintendo step their game up. It for me is all about competition, with out it companies do not have/see the need to innovate so in the end we as consumer win. On a side note I read on one of the gaming blogs that Sony seems to be taking a less arrogant stance toward media I guess and so this too could mean we have to sit through less crappy reporting. Can't wait for journos to figure out the difference between a editorial or commentary piece and a news piece.
 

Elios83

Member
Here there's also a new interview with Harrison about Home, Killzone and... Afrika!

http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/12-03-2007-4977.html

Pro-G: You made some pretty big announcements during your GDC keynote speech, with PS3 Home being the biggest of them all. Is this massive virtual community something that's been in the pipeline for a while?

Harrison: Yes, it's been in development for quite a long time. It actually started life on the PS2; it was a 3D lobby for a single multiplayer game and then we thought actually that it might be worth extending out to support more than one game on the PS2. And then we started to come up against some technical limitations of the platform. It couldn't quite do all of the things that we wanted it to do and the user created content was really the key factor that we wanted to include. Obviously, PS3 allows us to do that with a hard drive in every machine and cell processing, so the PS3 was the right platform to do it on. We've been working on it for two and a half years now.

Pro-G: You mentioned a beta...

Harrison: We're already in a private, closed beta for our own organization. We'll be opening up a beta program to users around the world, in the US and Europe, in April, and then we'll have a number of staged progressions through the summer, and if all goes well, we'll be launching in the fall.

Pro-G: What do you think Home's key advantages are over rival online services?

Harrison: What we've always wanted to do on Home, and I think we've delivered on this vision, is to create a rich layer that sits on top of the network platform. We're not changing the functionality of the system; we're just displaying it in a really compelling way. And I think having it as a rich three dimensional world where you can build community, you can communicate and customize, are very powerful trends that I think will resonate very strongly with PS3 users. I think people will want to come and join the PS3 community because of a product and service like this. We're also going to have a strong entertainment focus with Home, as you can see. There are lots of touch points for other forms of entertainment not just games, but music, photos...
PS3 Home isn't simply a reaction to competitors. It's been in development for over two years.
PS3 Home isn't simply a reaction to competitors. It's been in development for over two years.

Pro-G: And movies like in Home's theatre...

Harrison: Exactly. And I think it plays to all of the strengths to the PS3 and points to the direction we're going in as a company, as a brand, and as an organization, empowering audiences with user content.

Pro-G: Let's talk about the trophy system for a moment. How does that work?

Harrison: Developers define the milestone point in the game and then the associate graphic file that is the trophy associated with that milestone; then it will be downloaded to the Playstation3 user's hard drive. And the trophy can animate. We didn't show that yesterday...

Pro-G: Similar to the animated bit map graphics in the PS2 saves?

Harrison: Yes, exactly. It's taking that concept of 2D bit map graphics and moving it into 3D space. So it's no more challenging for developers to create the trophies and in many ways, it's easier, because they can re-use 3D assets they're already putting in their game, be it a weapon, object, or character.

Pro-G: Killzone PS3 was teased behind closed doors. Can you tell our readers how the game is shaping up?

Harrison: It's great. I wanted to give [developers] some sense with what we were doing with Playstation Edge - core technology that we've been investing in. We wanted to share those tools as widely as we can across the entire network of PS3 developers, and I just wanted to put that into context for the people who were at the event on Tuesday night, so they could see what kind of performance, what kind of power, developers were going to get at their disposal. It was not intended to be a deep-dive into Killzone PS3; we'll do that at E3 in July.
We'll see a lot more of Killzone 2 at E3 in July

Pro-G: Speaking of which, how will Sony's new PlayStation Edge suite of development tools help future PS3 development?

Harrison: They [the tools] focus on two areas. One is a tool called GCM Replay, which is a very powerful tool, allowing developers to get the most performance out of the graphics chip as well as the most control over the power of the graphics chip. It's not something that the users will be able to point out and go, 'oh that game uses GCM Replay'. The benefit to users will be much more objects on screen, more animation, more variety, more pixels, more shaders, things like that. The other technologies are all about harnessing the power of the cell processor and delivering technology that allows developers to get the best animation, geometry processing and compression. By allowing developers to gain access to this technology, very easily, very quickly, they can opt(imize) the sophistication and intensity of their game on PS3.

Pro-G: I have a feeling your PR rep is about to burst through the door (laughs), so I'll ask this last question. Afrika...

Harrison: Yes - good continent, sort of south of the equator (laughs).

Pro-G: Well yes, that too. But what about the game 'Mr trying to dance around the question'? (laughs). Perhaps it's being integrated into PS3 Home as a Safari Holiday package?

Harrison: (laughs) That's actually a good idea. The game designers on Afrika are being deliberately coy about the game experience. I know what it is; I've seen it and I know it's going to be a very interesting gaming experience. It's not about killing and it's not about running around the environment shooting elephants and hippopotami - that would be awful. That's not what we're all about. What we're about is taking people to places in a virtual world. So Afrika, I think, is a great example of that. But hold on just a little bit more!

Pro-G: Thanks for your time Phil.

Harrison: My pleasure.
 

antiloop

Member
Ghost said:
It says in the article it wont have the jumping into games thing....it also says your objects won't be persistant...so how is that in any way all the features? It sounds like it wont even have Second Life level functionality next month.

That's why it's called a beta. They will try out some basic functions at first and then add more and more over time until October. That's what I assume at least.
I wonder how they will do this thing with HD-video streaming, maybe they will have all SPE:s working on compressing and decompressing. That would make short trailers really small and fast to dl even with slow DSL.
 
RubxQub said:
That's what I'm saying.

I don't see people spending a ton of time in HOME just putzing around talking to people and doing random things. I'd rather be...playing games?

If I have free-time, I'm going to want to be playing games on my PS3 (or other consoles), not talking to people. I'll talk to people in the games I play. I'll get my media from direct sources.

This seems like a casual feature, on a non-casual console (read: $600).
there are a LOT of people into that whole social networking thing via the internet. So while you might not do it and I know I won't be, I do know of a TON of people who will be.
 

Gadeus

Member
BlackGoku03 said:
The Virtual PSP should take you there quickly. Plus, I wouldn't worry about load times... if it's on the HDD, how long can it be? I guess it'll depend on your internet connection as well.

The load times didn't seem long at all during the GDC keynote demo. During the keynote, the longest load I saw was the "connecting the world" initial load, which took 7 seconds, then an additional 3 seconds to reallocate. When the demonstrated avatar moved from zone to zone, the video cut away to Phil Harrison, who would talk for ten seconds or so. This means that the load time took a maximum of ten seconds, and potentially less if the camera refocuses weren't meant to disguise the load times. Of course, the load times could have been less during the keynote because of a lack of strain on the servers due to no users other than Harrison and the other employees.

I don't see people spending a ton of time in HOME just putzing around talking to people and doing random things. I'd rather be...playing games?
Look at how much time we're spending on NeoGAF, talking about games obviously while we aren't playing games. Same concept?
 

Aeon712

Member
I'm more worried about the beta only being 15,000 and 50,000 more then the initial download. My chances of getting in just went wayyyyy down :(.
 

Wollan

Member
RubxQub said:
I don't see people spending a ton of time in HOME just putzing around talking to people and doing random things. I'd rather be...playing games?

What about the items you get in your games? 'Cool, I got a dragon skull in L.A.I.R. I got a exotic plant in Uncharted. I'm going to put that trophy on display in the Hall of Fame and the put the plant in my living room. What's that I see on the commercial billboards? Behind the scenes documentary on God of War 3 at the GOW temple? I need to go there straight away. Oh yeah, I got a haircut in real life. I'm going to alter my avatar a bit.'
Home will make people addicted.
 
One thing i don't like is the virtua PSP, I would much rather a semi transparent xmb in home instead of that huge clunky psp taking up the screen.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
Wollan said:
What about the items you get in your games? 'Cool, I got a dragon skull in L.A.I.R. I got a exotic plant in Uncharted. I'm going to put that trophy on display in the Hall of Fame and the put the plant in my living room. What's that I see on the commercial billboards? Behind the scenes documentary on God of War 3 at the GOW temple? I need to go there straight away. Oh yeah, I got a haircut in real life. I'm going to alter my avatar a bit.'
Home will make people addicted.
Maybe its just because I hate The Sims, and don't actively participate in any social networking website.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
RubxQub said:
That's what I'm saying.

I don't see people spending a ton of time in HOME just putzing around talking to people and doing random things. I'd rather be...playing games?

If I have free-time, I'm going to want to be playing games on my PS3 (or other consoles), not talking to people. I'll talk to people in the games I play. I'll get my media from direct sources.

This seems like a casual feature, on a non-casual console (read: $600).


Then dont use HOME damn. Why complain about it here where many people will use HOME?
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
mckmas8808 said:
Then dont use HOME damn. Why complain about it here where many people will use HOME?
What you call complaining, I call commenting.

If you can't handle counter-points, why come to forums?
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
RubxQub said:
What you call complaining, I call commenting.

If you can't handle counter-points, why come to forums?


Okay my question is if you don't like The Sims and you don't seem to like HOME, then why stay in this thread? Why not just say what you have to say and then leave and go to another thread about something you like?
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
mckmas8808 said:
Okay my question is if you don't like The Sims and you don't seem to like HOME, then why stay in this thread? Why not just say what you have to say and then leave and go to another thread about something you like?
So I should make one post in every thread I participate in, and leave without reading any feedback I get. And not respond to any feedback I get?

Just post and leave?

If people direct comments towards me, I'll respond (like I'm doing now). It's how forums work, ya know?

Why get all up in arms because of my opinion?
 

arcader

Banned
OK - so we have

PS3 XMB beta November'06-Feburary

HOME closed beta: April-August

HOME open beta: August-October

HOME launch: October

;)
 

Wollan

Member
Bad-Boy you should be excited. Less than two weeks now until the March firmware update. While it doesn't fix everything it should still prove pretty nice. ;)
And yeah, I will finally get my PS3 Friday next week. Resistance here I come.
 

Durante

Member
Ghost said:
It sounds like it wont even have Second Life level functionality next month.
People should stop throwing this around. I very much doubt that home will ever have Second Life level functionality. It also doesn't need to. In fact, that would probably be detrimental to its goals.
 

theBishop

Banned
Mustaphadamus said:
One thing i don't like is the virtua PSP, I would much rather a semi transparent xmb in home instead of that huge clunky psp taking up the screen.

I sort of agree with you that they could've found a menu system that is more complimentary to the system.

But seeing it made me happy that Sony still looks at PSP as a platform they are serious about promoting. So i'm willing to look past it.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
RubxQub said:
Who knows how it'll be implemented when all is said and done, but with what I was shown so far, I'm not seeing the convenience.

I want to be wrong!

You are wrong.

A. Home isn't about convenience. It is about social networking, virtual world, etc., etc.

B. The convenience you're looking for? That will be in the media bar. It has been said a million times already.
 
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