• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Sony Innovates Again - Life With Playstation

Anedoctal evidence says that a weather channel is most useful. News channel, not so much.

Those channels are great on the Wii because the machine is a PC-like device for people who don't care about a PC. In under a minute and with just a couple of clicks you're browsing the weather from the couch.

If they are selling the PS3 as a lifestyle gadget, it's a neat thing to have.
 
maxmars said:
Anedoctal evidence says that a weather channel is most useful. News channel, not so much.

Those channels are great on the Wii because the machine is a PC-like device for people who don't care about a PC. In under a minute and with just a couple of clicks you're browsing the weather from the couch.

If they are selling the PS3 as a lifestyle gadget, it's a neat thing to have.
Click to expand...
Personally the weather channel on Wii is only ever good for telling me what the weather was 6 hours ago. Would actually be useful if the weather updated closer to real time.
 
chubigans said:
http://gizmodo.com/5019861/life-with-playstation-wii+like-weather-and-news-on-ps3
Click to expand...
The key difference is that while Nintendo's globe is fun enough to use, it's essentially just spinning around a cartoon. The PS3's globe will not only be displayed in a far higher resolution (1080p we're guessing), but it will feature a global weather satellite image. So instead of just seeing the forecast, users will be able to see the weather.
Click to expand...
That in itself is cool.
 
Amir0x said:
why does Sony keep copying all of Nintendo's worst ideas
Click to expand...
Probably because they can't figure out which ideas are the good ones and which aren't. They don't know exactly why the Wii's so successful so they just keep copying ideas one after another.

Same with Microsoft.


skinnyrattler said:
I think that's what's getting everybody. To us, it's a stupid little thing. This thing I'm typing on, a PC...it's a lot better and faster to check weather and news. Fucking blazing fast. I haven't checked the Wii's weather channel nor news channel. It may be the same fuckin channel but I don't care. It's useless.

It's just funny that after Sony fought off claims that they stole things from their competitors, people are now hip to the game. Everybody takes from the competitors. And the truth of it, it's better for gamers. Sony would be shit if they didn't add rumble nor an analog stick. Those make sense and are standards. But a weather channel with news with a virtual globe you can spin and shit...right after Nintendo does it. And when most 'core' gamers or whatever you want to call it will tell you they don't really check them. It's just fuckin weird and it makes them seem clueless. Is this really needed? Will this really do anything for the system? Maybe they don't care and it didn't take resources but just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But hey, whatever. I predict waggle will become standard and these weather channels could fuckin disappear and no one would care. It doesn't inspire me. Sony just seems lost as to who they are.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
This is so freakin lame. Hopefully I don't have to install this shit. Some how I have already used 10gb on my 40gb PS3. All I have on there is GTA4. What the fuck?! Sony needs to learn how to use space more efficiently. I'm sure this thing will be 2-3gb :lol
 
I love how people here are getting so upset over a little free feature. Who the fuck cares if the Wii has the same thing? This thing isn't suppose to sell consoles its just a nice little thing to have.
 
LM4sure said:
This is so freakin lame. Hopefully I don't have to install this shit. Some how I have already used 10gb on my 40gb PS3. All I have on there is GTA4. What the fuck?! Sony needs to learn how to use space more efficiently. I'm sure this thing will be 2-3gb :lol
Click to expand...

Actually it will most likely be included with the firmware. If not, then under 100mb for sure.
 
chubigans said:
Actually it will most likely be included with the firmware. If not, then under 100mb for sure.
Click to expand...

Even if it's 10MB I'm not touching it. I can see the weather from the internet thank you very much. Still, as long as the features are free keep them coming Sony.
 
so it will do what my google personalized page does... whats the big deal with "stealing"?
Maybe i am one of the few that remembers how cool were the weather apps in '99, and shit look at google desktop now - weather, rss and news...
 
Threi said:
I see fanboys being fanboys.
Click to expand...

Eh not really. I was replying to his stupid generalizations with stupid generalizations to make fun of him. You can accuse me of stooping to his level but unlike certain loyalists I'm always fully aware of how preposterous I am.
 
fortified_concept said:
Eh not really. I was replying to his stupid generalizations with stupid generalizations to make fun of him. You can accuse me of stooping to his level but unlike certain loyalists I'm always fully aware of how ridiculous I'm being.
Click to expand...
i was not referring to you two specifically.
 
I'm completely fine with this. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I like the Forecast Channel and News Channel on the Wii. I had been wishing that Sony would bring something similar to PS3...and this looks to be it.

The Wii Forecast and News Channels are not perfect, there's lots of room for improvement. If Sony is improving on these concepts (and it seems like they are--even simple things like choosing background music), then that's a good thing. Perhaps it will motivate Nintendo to improve and evolve their channels as well.

If they could somehow merge this with Google Earth, then it would be even better! :D
 
letzshakehenryqg8.png
 
This "everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink" mentality that Sony and Microsoft are stuck in is why Nintendo is running away with this industry. For better or worse, these two behemoths are locked in a digital arms race -- "we must everything that they have, but better and more!! -- and, in the end, it's costing them and us.

Sony deserves the criticism it's getting. Sony is not setting is own course, is not focusing on an obvious goal, but is instead trying to assimilate all things into its one-stop entertainment box: Blu-Ray, Sixaxis, Life, Home, etc., etc.

This is just another symptom of an underlying illness, and the toll so far has been great (huge losses, huge loss of market share, huge loss of mind share, the quick demise of the PlayStation brand). I'm not trying to exaggerate the significance of this little announcement, but I can clearly see why many on this board would see it as absurd, if not pathetic.
 
poppabk said:
Personally the weather channel on Wii is only ever good for telling me what the weather was 6 hours ago. Would actually be useful if the weather updated closer to real time.
Click to expand...

In principle though, couldn't you look out the window?
 
ghostlyjoe said:
This "everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink" mentality that Sony and Microsoft are stuck in is why Nintendo is running away with this industry. For better or worse, these two behemoths are locked in a digital arms race -- "we must everything that they have, but better and more!! -- and, in the end, it's costing them and us.

Sony deserves the criticism it's getting. Sony is not setting is own course, is not focusing on an obvious goal, but is instead trying to assimilate all things into its one-stop entertainment box: Blu-Ray, Sixaxis, Life, Home, etc., etc.
Click to expand...

I fail to see what the problem is. If a competing system has an attractive feature, then why not try to adopt it and possibly improve on it? I think that's better than the alternative philosophy of deliberately not doing it out of fear of being criticized for "copying".

I like the Forecast and News Channels on the Wii. As someone who owns a Wii, I'm happy to have these features on that system. As someone who also owns a PS3, I'm happy to see something similar coming soon for PS3. I'm hoping it's a vast improvement over what the Wii is offering right now. If PS3 never got Life with PlayStation, then it's no big loss to me personally, I can just fire up the Wii for something similar...but I'd much rather they offer it than not offer it.

Nintendo seems to be doing the "one-stop entertainment box" as well. They've already got several non-game channels on the Wii. If Wii got Folding@home and a media streaming option that's more functional than trying to use Opera to stream, then I'd celebrate that too.
 
fortified_concept said:
Even if it's 10MB I'm not touching it. I can see the weather from the internet thank you very much. Still, as long as the features are free keep them coming Sony.
Click to expand...
I call bullshit. its free you will atleast try it. I download every demo on live, even if I know I will delete it 2 minutes after playing. its free why not download and try?
 
Are people really shitting on this? It is one of those optional side services that you can explore on the system, that either television or the Internet probably would better serve you, but it is there and you can ignore it. What is funny is people saying it is a Wii ripoff. Unless they implement it in such a horrible way that you long for the good old days of Prodigy and Compuserve, it is automatically superior even if it is a ripoff idea. And even then it is just a ripoff of a service that has been provided a million times across a million different platforms. What a silly thing to rag on.
 
So the PS3 has a weather channel...the 360 may be getting Miis and a "GamerPad"...Nintendo is coming out with "WiiWare".

It's all good.

I don't think PS3 owners wouldn't be happy if things stood at a standstill and PSN didn't evolve. Pretty soon we're gonna see in-game XMB, support for DiVX, and more.

WiiWare sounds a lot like PSN and XBLA...and that's great. Not only is it a service to Wii owners, it will send a message to the competition. If Nintendo can do something that would surpass XBLA or PSN in any manner, then we all win, whether we own a Wii or not.

I look at the next gen hockey games as an example, NHL 09 is taking a lot of features right out of the NHL 2K series. I don't mind, it will make it a better game. I think NHL 2K9 should rip off the control scheme established by NHL 07/08, to make itself a better game.

We can point fingers, or we can accept that "ripping off" each other means better products for all of us.
 
Agent X said:
I fail to see what the problem is. If a competing system has an attractive feature, then why not try to adopt it and possibly improve on it? I think that's better than the alternative philosophy of deliberately not doing it out of fear of being criticized for "copying".

I like the Forecast and News Channels on the Wii. As someone who owns a Wii, I'm happy to have these features on that system. As someone who also owns a PS3, I'm happy to see something similar coming soon for PS3. I'm hoping it's a vast improvement over what the Wii is offering right now. If PS3 never got Life with PlayStation, then it's no big loss to me personally, I can just fire up the Wii for something similar...but I'd much rather they offer it than not offer it.

Nintendo seems to be doing the "one-stop entertainment box" as well. They've already got several non-game channels on the Wii. If Wii got Folding@home and a media streaming option that's more functional than trying to use Opera to stream, then I'd celebrate that too.
Click to expand...

It's not a problem for the active consumer, for those who already have invested hundreds of dollars on a PS3. To them, it's yet another feature that increases, however incrementally, the value of that purchase.

But, as I said in my earlier post, it's symptomatic of what's plaguing Sony this generation. You can point to $599 as a the main culprit in the industry sea-change, but that number is not abritrary. It is the result of a series of poor decisions, culminating in a product that Sony was unable to offer at an attractive price.

My main point is while Nintendo is pursuing novelty and accessibility (apparantly, those are bad words around here) -- implementing new ideas or old ideas in new ways to add value to its product -- Sony is trying to add value to its product by assimilating loosely related ideas into one all-ecompassing superbox. Thus, you get an HD movie player, a gaming device, a social networking device, a media PC, a Web browser, a weather service, a state-of-art processing unit, etc. It could perform each of those functions with extreme efficiency and value, but it also creates new barriers for potential consumers: Those who want a movie player AND a gaming device AND a "Second-Life" style virtual community are very well served. Those who want only one of those things are still served, but have to overcome the significant hurdles of higher price and unwanted complexity.

I'm not trying to say that "Nintendo is great and does no wrong" or "Sony only copies Nintendo." All three console makers are guilty of the same thing to some degree. But while Nintnedo is differentiating its brand and creating unique value for its product, Sony and MS are trying to gobble up existing value from competing products. It seems that while Nintendo is actively focused on its goal of disruption, MS and Sony, in particular, are throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.
 
Ahh yes, this is what Sony does best. Take Nintendos ideas and make them better.

Can't wait to see the motion controller at E3.
 
ghostlyjoe said:
My main point is while Nintendo is pursuing novelty and accessibility (apparantly, those are bad words around here) -- implementing new ideas or old ideas in new ways to add value to its product -- Sony is trying to add value to its product by assimilating loosely related ideas into one all-ecompassing superbox. Thus, you get an HD movie player, a gaming device, a social networking device, a media PC, a Web browser, a weather service, a state-of-art processing unit, etc. It could perform each of those functions with extreme efficiency and value, but it also creates new barriers for potential consumers: Those who want a movie player AND a gaming device AND a "Second-Life" style virtual community are very well served. Those who want only one of those things are still served, but have to overcome the significant hurdles of higher price and unwanted complexity.

I'm not trying to say that "Nintendo is great and does no wrong" or "Sony only copies Nintendo." All three console makers are guilty of the same thing to some degree. But while Nintnedo is differentiating its brand and creating unique value for its product, Sony and MS are trying to gobble up existing value from competing products. It seems that while Nintendo is actively focused on its goal of disruption, MS and Sony, in particular, are throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. The perception problem with PS3 is because, like PSP, Sony fails to articulate the entire package clearly. This has been their problem since day one, with or without Nintendo. Your perception that PS3 is a litany of unrelated features speak to this problem.

OTOH, it does not mean that Sony is rolling out these services simply to justify the high price. Truth to be told, the price will come down inevitably with or without these features.

Instead, we are looking at the intermediate result of Sony's effort. These features all sit on the same infrastructure that is called the Playstation Network collectively. Once completed, I think the picture will be clearer (Something is still hidden from us, but it's starting to show its tail now ^_^ )

The UI will still suck though. That's another Sony problem. They will need a few more iterations to make everything easy to use (like the PSN Store).
 
patsu said:
Yes and no. The perception problem with PS3 is because, like PSP, Sony fails to articulate the entire package clearly. This has been their problem since day one, with or without Nintendo. Your perception that PS3 is a litany of unrelated features speak to this problem.

OTOH, it does not mean that Sony is rolling out these services simply to justify the high price. Truth to be told, the price will come down inevitably with or without these features.

Instead, we are looking at the intermediate result of Sony's effort. These features all sit on the same infrastructure that is called the Playstation Network collectively. Once completed, I think the picture will be clearer (Something is still hidden from us, but it's starting to show its tail now ^_^ )

The UI will still suck though. That's another Sony problem. They will need a few more iterations to make everything easy to use (like the PSN Store).
Click to expand...

If there is a grand vision behind it all, it will certainly be interesting to see it unfold.
 
ghostlyjoe said:
This "everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink" mentality that Sony and Microsoft are stuck in is why Nintendo is running away with this industry. For better or worse, these two behemoths are locked in a digital arms race -- "we must everything that they have, but better and more!! -- and, in the end, it's costing them and us.

Sony deserves the criticism it's getting. Sony is not setting is own course, is not focusing on an obvious goal, but is instead trying to assimilate all things into its one-stop entertainment box: Blu-Ray, Sixaxis, Life, Home, etc., etc.

This is just another symptom of an underlying illness, and the toll so far has been great (huge losses, huge loss of market share, huge loss of mind share, the quick demise of the PlayStation brand). I'm not trying to exaggerate the significance of this little announcement, but I can clearly see why many on this board would see it as absurd, if not pathetic.
Click to expand...
I totally get that your not exaggerating anything about the illness infecting these behemoths who are locked in a digital arms race to assimilate all things with great toll to us in an absurd, even pathetic fashion.
 
I don't much care if it's a rip off of a Wii channel idea. It seems like a niceif marginally useful feature. I doubt I'd use it much but it's not like it's gonna make owning a PS3 worse somehow.
 
kaching said:
I totally get that your not exaggerating anything about the illness infecting these behemoths who are locked in a digital arms race to assimilate all things with great toll to us in an absurd, even pathetic fashion.
Click to expand...

Did I hurt you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

[Insider Gaming]: Sony PlayStation Accounts Are Reportedly Being Hacked With Ease
2
53
97
DenchDeckard replied
  • Locked
Bloomberg: Sony Pulls Back From PlayStation Games on PC
7
427
T-Cake replied
Sony and Honda are scrapping Afeela, their car with PlayStation dashboard themes and Remote Play
Business Game Dev 
26
344
Victhemic replied
[Insider Gaming] Gamers May Get Refunds After Sony PlayStation Digital Store Lawsuit
33
508
Moses85 replied
(Push Square) 'Partnering with PlayStation Studios Has Empowered Us': Sony Steps Up Investment in Kena's PS5 Sequel
2
67
1K
Zacfoldor replied
Top Bottom