The messy, doomed journey of PlayStation Home, as told by its architect

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

The messy, doomed journey of PlayStation Home, as told by its architect

Interview 'It'll be 10 years before we see its like again'

By Hugh Langley   December 2nd

 

Home sets sail in March, but is it too soon to say goodbye?

 

In September this year, Sony announced that PlayStation Home will soon ask its residents to vacate the premises before closing its doors for good. Ask around and plenty of PlayStation users will tell you it's high time, but it could well be argued that Home finally has the chance to become something meaningful. Since Facebook bought Oculus VR there's been speculation that the big blue social network is working on its own Metaverse-esque social space, something PlayStation Home could have been (aided by Project Morpheus) had it stuck around.

 

But after six years, Sony no longer sees Home as a viable project. Not only will the social platform never make its way onto the PS4 and PS Vita, PS3 users will become totally homeless on March 31, 2015.

 

Naturally, the reaction has been to give Home the stamp of failure, but PlayStation own former Home Architect Oscar Clark, who launched the service, doesn't agree. "It was a massive success that everyone thinks was a failure," he tells TechRadar at Bilbao's Fun and Serious game festival. "Although it wasn't as successful as it could have been for a variety of reasons. Getting a clear strategy was difficult and it ended up being a compromise. That said, it was a pretty effective compromise in most cases. We did see a gradual evolution towards making a much more playable experience, a bigger range of games."

 

If you're comparing some of Home's early-day content to futuristic racer Sodium 2, which arrived later, the service has definitely come on leaps and bounds. "You could play bloody Wipeout in PlayStation Home!" says Clark. "It was called Sodium 2 but it was basically Wipeout. They had a full MMO. Could they have done better? If they were companies with bigger pockets, sure, but there are fundamental design problems. For example there was no back button... you might have Home Square but if I went off somewhere else I was in an offshoot, I had to navigate back to the Home space.

 

"On most [browsers] you have a home button that sends you straight back. I couldn't, in character, walk up to a teleporter to take me back to Home Square. Which meant people went off into different avenues and got lost. People even had trouble getting out of the apartment in the early days. People didn't realise they could walk out of the door. There was a door with a sign saying walk this way. People couldn't walk out the door."

 

Continues...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Home was a waste of time as it was made for 90% of gamers. However the article doesn't read anywhere as negatively as the sites choice of title.

"It was a massive success that everyone thinks was a failure," he tells TechRadar at Bilbao's Fun and Serious game festival.

Hopefully we don't see anything like it for at least another 10 years.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

I watched a Youtube video where someone talked about this topic.

 

In my opinion they shouldn't take it down.

 

However this really doesn't affect me as I don't use consoles anymore.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I've jumped in to Home a few times over the years, and there were some cool ideas as it evolved. I enjoyed the event they had for a while, I think it was something like Xi?

I recently jumped back in to wander around, but it seemed to have evolved from something with no real purpose to something that was trying to be everything. I found it a bit too confusing for the short time I was back, and I haven't gone back to it since.

I wouldn't mind if they gave it another go, but they need to have a better plan for the direction of the project.

[compl3x]

Yeah, I never understood the allure of virtual social networking stuff like Home. It cool that Sony tried it but I never understood the value of it personally.

[astropheed Veteran]

 

 

People even had trouble getting out of the apartment in the early days. People didn't realise they could walk out of the door. There was a door with a sign saying walk this way. People couldn't walk out the door.

 

It's the same in real life too, except they know the door is the way out.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I find this part in particular puzzling:

 

"I needed to be able to exit a game to [get to] Home. Everyone thought it was going to be the other way around. Everyone thought it would be a game launching into a new game from Home, but that wasn't the key."

 

It was continually marketed as a game launcher (while it was marketed that is), and the bigger picture was the ability to then start watching movies together from the virtual cinema etc.

 

But then again, this was the Phil Harrison era and we quickly learnt to ignore just about anything that comes out of his mouth :P

[Brian M. Veteran]

I think the best way to describe it would be "a gimmick".

I don't know anybody who actually used it, except 5 minutes of "oh what's this, I don't really understand, erm...".

[Showan]

When I first heard of PS Home, my mindset was more of a "Wreck it Ralph" type world...

 

My friends and I would hang out in this central hub/world... Sit around in someones pad, and one of us can walk to a poster of a game that we all own, and we all could launch/warp into it all in one shot as a party or individually...

[Aergan]

I tried it a few times. I thought they had licensed content and a business model from Maxxis/EA, imported it into an EverQuest engine then charged money for anything that had a mesh.