Home Beta Starts

I'm not sure if Jeff Kazbek or Chuck got the invite from Sony, but Sony's Home beta kicked off today. Regardless of which system you support or have allegiance with, Home seems like a very promising UI for interacting with other players and getting into game lobbies. If you haven't seen the Home demo, then check out the video below. Sony says more invites will go out soon enough so more people can test.

PS3 Home Not New?

There's some chatter about Sony's PS3 Home not being a new concept and being ripped off from this person or that. In fact, some people keep pointing to this forum post from 2005 about the future of gaming.

But I say that even this post is not new. The concept of an interactive online world has been around for along time. Cyberpunk stories usually have an interactive internet as part of their world. Anyone who knows about Shadowrun (which was first developed in 1989) knows about the concept of the internet being a place where people have avatars and wander around a world that looks like the real thing.

Remember, basically everything has been thought of in one form or another at one time. So, is PS3 Home a new concept? No. Just look at all the comparisons to Second Life. But Sony has the capability of actually pulling it off and putting it into the mainstream.

PS3 Home, what the F**K!!!

Well it looks like Sony has caved into the pressure and are going to borrow one more page from Nintendo's playbook. Sony reps have mentioned in an interview that their Home service will be censored for foul language and behavior. Gizmodo has an excerpt and link to the full interview here but you dirty little doodles better be on your best behavior because big brother is watching you.... Yes you Bryan. Not only will they censor language through chats in the public areas, but if somebody feels that you acted offensively after being invited to your private areas (hahaha, I said private areas!!) they can report you, which I assume if this occurs too often will get you banned. If you ask me, since Sony said that their system is for adult gamers, then why limit your biggest potential feature for the smallest possible niche, maybe just make a "kids zone", this is really going to discourage all those Second Life converts.

PS3 Home FAQ

Sony has released a 10 page Home FAQ in PDF format. It covers a large range of questions for both users and gamer designers. Some interesting points:

• 64 Users Per Lobby
• Sony is Shooting for a 500MB Download Initially
• Users Will Be Able to Sell Items to Other Users
• Integrated PSN Friends List, and Search Functionality for Spaces
• Sony's Working on User Created Content
• Closed Beta Starts in April
• Open Beta Starts in August
• Home Goes Live in October

This definitely is sounding more like Second Life with all the ads and virtual purchasing features. I'll be keeping my eye on this.

XYBA Podcast Ep04 - The GDC

Boo yaka it is here. The XYBA Podcast Ep 04. With more than half the crew missing, Jeff subs and makes it feel like no one was missing. The breakdown is below.

0:00 - Called Charlie to bring into the call
0:20 - Opening Song by Engine Down
0:45 - Introductions with guest Jeff and I think Andy
1:37 - Games We Are Playing: Crackdown, Viva Pinata, Red Steel
2:10 - Jeff talks about how long it takes to get your 360 back from repair and don't mention you have it plugged into a power strip
4:10 - Games We Are Looking Forward To: Jam Sessions, TMNT, TMNT Arcade on XLA, Mass Effect in June, Andy's looking forward to the GTA IV trailer, Two Worlds, Blue Dragon, Lost Oddessy, and No More Heroes
7:36 - Ragging on Red Steels controls
8:40 - Gaming News: GDC News
20:30 - PS3 Home: We discuss the PS3's new online community interface
33:47 - Little Big Planet: We try to figure out what the game/game developer software is all about. Great press release reading by Andy.
38:50 - Singing Star: Jeff reveals his girly side
40:10 - Additional news from Josh: Halo 2 Vista, Steven Spielberg making a Wii game for EA, GTA IV countdown site, CliffyB and the weapon upgrade element that was left out of Gears of War, and Apple TV may play games.
45:10 - Game Ideas: Josh submits his idea for mini games to be available while waiting in lobbies
46:30 - What we would like to see in Next-Gen or This Gen:
47:10 - Rants: SSX on the Wii makes Jeff act the fool, Andy goes off on video game manuals and their lack of info
52:04 - Andy rags on the Gametap and Jeff questions Andy's copy of Windows
53:00 - Andy hates on press releases
54:00 - Josh goes off on Epic's douchebag lawyer, Zachary R. Bishop, and Jeff sides with the terrorist leader, Zach
57:30 - Josh tries to wrap it up, but Andy refuses to let it end
58:00 - We talk about destructible furniture on PS3 Home
59:55 - Josh wraps it up and the shot outs go out. Thanks again Jeff. Outro music by Ben Davis




Download XYBA Podcast Ep04

PS3 Home Trophies Optional

In our most recent podcast(#4), we talk a lot about PS3 Home. I stumbled across some further information today so I'll post it up even before the podcast is live.

While the Xbox 360 requires all games to have achievements, Sony is considering making trophies optional for developers. They are leaning towards not forcing companies to come up with trophies for every game they make.

I, however, think this would be a mistake. As we talked about in Podcast 3, achievements really bring something to gaming so knowing that there are trophies for every game would also help Sony.

Sony also said if they did make it mandatory, it might be something as simple as getting a trophy for owning the game. To that, I say lame!