PlayStation's virtual home is less than hospitable

Washington Post's Mike Musgrove writes - 'DUDE, this place is quiet," says one avatar, a rather generic-looking 20-something guy as we lurk on one side of the Home central plaza, watching virtual people go by on what appears, on my television screen, to be a sunny day in a modern town center. "This could get boring fast," texts another in agreement, a speech balloon popping up over his head.

Last December Sony introduced a virtual world to the PlayStation 3 in a move designed to intrigue the gamers of the world by giving them a virtual place to mingle and hang out. Fire up Home for the first time and you can build your virtual self from scratch, selecting everything from facial features to the clothes that will cover your digital body. After that, off you go to wander around advertising-laden movie theaters, malls and bowling alleys, to meet and converse with your fellow PS3 fans.

[BigKev45]

Home sucks! Sony should just focus on making PSN as good as Xbox Live right now.

[Ven1000]

Home doesn't suck. It's still a work in progress and as the article says, has plenty of potential. Sony is making their PSN better as well.

[blackpanther25]

HOME is part of the psn (so you would say it is better than live in certain aspects). Your comment Fails

On topic: these guys must be on the low server cause my home is always filled with people(too much people as a matter of fact).

[ChozenWoan]

that once PSN has cross game chats and invites, the PSN will be hands down 50x better than XBLive. Not only will it be free, but it will have all of the basic socializing features of XBLive, but it will also have a media library and social hub (Home) that just can't be matched by MS.

By the time XBlive's Miis... I mean Avatars get half way to where Sony's Homyz are, Home will be 50x bigger and better. Heck now that I think about it, if you count the games in Home, PSN has even more exclusives than most people realize. Especially once EA opens it's space and other companies see just what Home can really do.

Some people say Home sucks, but for what it's meant for, it's a great service. And at the rate Sony is going, it will only get better month after month after month.

[blackpanther25]

See here's the thing if Live had something like HOME from the getgo i would understand why you have to pay for live. Meanwhile sony made home for free and they only advertise sony game products(besides red bull).

instead of teling people to pay sony made a free social hub and they took a page straight out f2p mmo games and made an item mall. So that they make money and keep HOME free.

[pwnsause]

"Meanwhile sony made home for free and they only advertise sony game products(besides red bull)."

They were recently advertising games like RE5 and SFIV. in fact i logged in about 3 hours ago and they were advertising 50 Cent's new game

[YungXclusive2K9]

Home is a big Epic win, They are playing 50 Cents music in there for crying out loud. You Know how many non gamers that appeals too. The opportunity is endless

BTW: Last Time i checked it was Playstation Home Beta

[Rob0g0rilla]

It wouldn't make the firmware updates any better. There's a completely different team(in Japan) that makes firmware updates. I honestly think Home generates too much money for them to even consider it and it's technically not a finished product.

BTW, this is super old.

[StephanieBBB]

Then yeah Home would be = fail.

But home is free, it's growing and ill be spending some quality time there as soon as the capcom or EA space arrives =)

[rockleex]

At first you'll feel like Home is pointless.

But as soon as you successfully socialize with people and gain even more people on your friends list, you realize what Home's really all about(for now).

I've made a couple friends on Home who regularly invite me to COD:WAW matches. They're more friendly than the friends you get from playing COD, those usually tend to be d-bags or they just talk WAY too much. -_-"

Anyways, if you go into Home KNOWING that its a social hub, then you'll have no problems. ^_^

[Capt CHAOS]

What decade are you aiming at PSN to have that functionality?

[JsonHenry]

I tried to find a use for home. But I couldn't.

It was not fun. It was not that interactive. It was not worth my time. So I uninstalled it and went back to playing video games like a good PS3 owner.

[pangitkqb]

but Home CURRENTLY sucks. That doesn't mean it always will, but can we call a spade a spade please?

The fact is, Home has been in development since EARLY 2005!!!! Another popular PS3 product has also been in development that long. It is an amazing game called Killzone 2. When I look at how long both took to develop and see just how much better Killzone 2 is than Home, how can I not look at Home and think "4 years of development and this is it?" I then immediately exit home and fire up Killzone.

Home may SOMEDAY be awesome, but right now it is not. Four years in development and millions of Sony dollars later, Sony gamers deserve better.

[blackpanther25]

Home is suppose to be a social hub so if your on home to not talk to other people then ofcourse its gonna be boring. Everything else they placed in it is just extra, but the main purpose is to socialize with other people. Now if you get that then home doesn't really suck. My cousin hated the ps3 but as soon as he started using home he would never get off. He would chat with people for hours on my ps3, lol he even got a phone and he is only 16.

[ChozenWoan]

when you consider the time and money Sony has invested in Home and compare that to other Video games, it may seem underwhelming. But then again, games are meant to be action driven, where as Home is meant to be socially engaging. Those are two completely different objectives and is akin to comparing Halo with The Sims.

Yes, Sony could have done much more in less time if they would have began with a real MMO engine. Instead they started with a start up engine for an online game that was killed in the early stages of it's production. If they had started with something like the EQ or EQ2 engine, and remade all of the models to be from the modern time period, then Home would be the 8th wonder of the Gaming World (not that I could tell you what the other 7 are mind you).

In the end, Home is what it is. It is lacking many features, but as Home becomes more profitable to Sony, they will begin to bring back more of the missing features. They will also continue to add more and more content until Home reaches a point to where everyone will not be able to imagine a time before it.. ok so 10 years from now but it's coming.

[Raz]

Home may have a lot of ***ential, but right now it ****s big floppy donkey ****s covered in **** and crusty old ****s. ****-festered ****-burgling donut *****! That's exactly what it is, at this moment.

Maybe it'll get better. I can't speak to that. What I can say is that right now that ****-gargling ****-spewing *********-**** **** ***** can eat **** *** and **** my ******** before I ******* spend another second on it.

Sorry. I'm a bit pent-up. All this waiting for it to become useful and interesting has left me a little testy. ^_^

[WeaseL]

for the 360 fangirls
http://www.n4g.com/gaming/N...
Published: 81 days 19 hours ago

[ChozenWoan]

I did notice that the article felt dated, Twilight hasn't been shown in the theater of Home for quite some time. I just dismissed it as I know many mags don't print articles for weeks to months later.

Ohh well, the more people talk about Home, the more people talk about Home. So thanks for showing Sony some love... hate... whatever. All press is good press.

[Vicophine]

I swear I saw this exact same article months ago...

[Blackcanary]

you did this is a very old article.

[chasegamez2]

go play with those gay a$$ avatars

[Dogswithguns]

I like Home for what it is. better than xLive and Mii.

[ceedubya9]

I think the only reason I would go back in is if something major was going on and HOME was the only place to go for it. Otherwise, I don't enjoy hanging around in a Virtual world when I can just boot up my game and play it. But that's just me. I'm sure that there are plenty others that actually enjoy it.