[Rumour] PlayStation Home Release Dates

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Grand Master

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Welcome to our run through of the improvements and additions in the latest version that we intend to make available to everyone when the Open Beta starts in the coming weeks.

We will also be inviting large numbers of new testers into the closed beta to ensure it is properly load tested so expect a great number of new faces. Please help us in helping them.

Home Beta 1.0 is aimed at delivering a stable base upon which to build the service over the coming months and years and so please remember that this is not a game and it is not a launch, this is a start of a journey.

Timings

1.0 will arrive in the closed beta this Thursday the 20th and will entail a downtime in the morning. On Friday evening will also see a load test event to see how the servers hold up. The number of invitations going out should provide that test.

We have 2 further batches of invitations scheduled for the following week and overall we’ll be inviting a huge number of people into the Closed Beta in SCEE territories. The final number of invitations sent will depend on how the load test goes hence no dates yet for the 2nd and 3rd batch or any numbers.

Open Beta will be here when its here.

On with the Patch Notes:

Installation and the first visit

When you run Home for the first time it will prompt you to reserve space on your Hard Drive into which data can be downloaded now and in the future. Home will occupy 3077MB of Space on your Hard Drive as before.

During the first log on to Home the process of viewing and accepting (or rejecting) the EULA has been greatly improved.

Something else new to those logging in for the first time is our simple, interactive tutorial. This introduces many of the core aspects of Home and is available whilst in your apartment. If you want t go through the tutorial again there I an option to reset it in the ne Menu Pad.

Age limits and ratings

Home itself is not a game and is therefore not Age Rated as such. However each SCE Region will have its own Age Limit applied to it in accordance with the regional management’s plans. SCEE’s Age Limit for Home will be 16 and over from the start of Open Beta. The Age Limit on the Closed beta remains 18 and over.

Games within Home will be Age Rated however, and their Age Rating will be displayed and enforced where applicable with a new interface addition.

Menu Pad

The vPSP has been replaced by our new Menu Pad. This has allowed us to reorganise the menus so you should find the presentation and flow of the options faster to navigate with key items being closer to hand.

Additionally now that the dilemma of potentially having two XMB’s in Home is solved by the removal of the vPSP we can now support n Game XMB throughout Home.

Profanity filter

Following all of your feedback we have completely replaced the bad word filter with something far more adaptable, flexible and able to deal with languages in isolation from each other.

European Language Spaces

In the previous version the language groups within Europe were separated into their own areas with no navigation between them. We have now removed this and brought everyone back together. In the future we will be adding language based areas for SCE customers and a means of navigating between them.

Background Downloading

When you first visit a Space it will be downloaded to your PS3 but now you will be offered the choice of downloading it in the background. This can be used on multiple Spaces at the same time and when each download is complete a message will appear to let you know and to ask if you would like to go to that Space now.

Regional Travel

Some of the old hands amongst the testers will remember the vPSP Menu option to travel between US, European and Japanese spaces that was removed in version 0.8.3 back in February. This just left the option to Go To a Friend in another region or Invite them to you. The usage of this over the last few months has allowed the Home management teams to gain experience in understanding the complexities involved in regional travel. Subjects like licensing and contracts, moderation, localisation and regional business direction all have to be considered. Therefore, on balance, we have taken the decision to limit Regional Travel to Personal Spaces and Clubhouses.

Interface Changes

When you select Full Screen on something like a Video or a Poster it will now ensure you have a clear view by making anyone standing in the way invisible to you.

The information you see above someone’s Avatar has change and you should find this much more useful now. For example if they are setting up a game launching session then the name of the game and how many other people are in the group will be displayed.

The Friends list has had a small change and now a small star will appear next to a Friends name if the are in the same place in Home as you.

Animations

We have spent some time on the dances and you’ll find some of the old favourites a little better now. Whilst we have also removed a few we have added new dances and overall your dancing needs should be better catered for.

You will also find you are now able to sit on the floor just about anywhere you like; that option is under the “extra” menu available by pressing R1. Some emotes are available whist seated on the floor.

Spaces

The Marketplace is now called the Shopping Centre and you will find the shopping interface has been rebuilt and no closely resembles the PlayStation Store interface.

The Game Space has been renamed the Bowling Alley and many improvements have been made to games within it. Pool has been overhauled and now includes a strength gauge for your shots and bowling had had many changes made to it including full animations for players whilst bowling.

Some of the arcade games have been removed and some of those will return once they have been updated into our scripting language of choice, Lua. Two new games have arrived, echochrome and Ice breaker.

Although not placed within the Bowling Alley Draughts/Checkers has been rewritten in Lau and you should notice an improvement to its presentation as well as the addition of a spectator mode and a queuing system.

Rewards

Both echochrome and Ice Break have our new system of Rewards applied to them. This is a means of giving Home items as rewards for activities, trophies and other accomplishments both within and outside of Home, right across the PlayStation Network.

Grief types

The first proper Grief Types is now live and replaces the old list completely. These are the categories of Grief that you can report other users for from within the “Submit a Report” function. Further types will be added in the coming weeks.

Clubs and Clubhouses

Introducing our basic club support within Home. Some facts on Clubs:

- A user can own 1 club

- But be member of a total 5 clubs, which includes any self owned club. So, own 1 club and be a member of 4 others or simply b a member of 5 clubs owned by other people

- Each club has 1 leader (the owner) and up to 4 sub-leaders

- A club can have up to 32 members

- Each club name is unique

- Search through clubs

- Send requests to join a Club and leaders can send invitations

- Clubs created in Closed Beta will be deleted when Open Beta starts

A Clubhouse is a personal space for the Club members to meet in and persists even with the owner/leader offline. The first active feature for Clubhouses is the bulletin Board where the leader and, optionally, the sub-leaders can leave announcements for the whole club to read. This is limited to four simultaneous announcements at the moment.

Store items

This only applies to the testers that had version0.98.

Items that you previously obtained from the Stores I the Shopping Centre will be missing. Clothing that you were wearing will be replaced by default clothing and furniture will be gone.

However, you can reacquire these items from the Shopping Centre.

Reward items from competitions and puzzles will be unaffected by this.

TGS2008 T-Shirts

Due to an unfortunate oversight these T-Shirts will not be in 1.0.

Sorry guys and gals, they were simply left out of the conversion process. This does not mean you’ll lose them if you already have them. We are looking at ways of bringing them back t those of you that were there at the time but right now I couldn’t commit to this. There will be something for pre 1.0 active testers however, as a toke of our thanks for helping us get this far.

But I’m not going to tell you what that might be ;)

Edited by $n!pR
Grand Master

+Audioboxer Subscriber²

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More delays for the 'open beta'??? who would have thought? yawn.

There have been no delays to the open beta.

wha!? i thought home and nxe were suppose to come out at the same time? what gives?

i cant believe that Microsoft announced NXE waaayyy after home and brought it out before home! lol Sony really f%*#ed up!

That was never an official date.

Try weighing up the development scale of NXE and Home as well.

Grand Master

+Audioboxer Subscriber²

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PS3-Sense writes: "PlayStation Home version 1.0 just launched and the first invites for Qore buyers have been sent out. So everyone check your mails to see if you can enjoy PlayStation Home"

Source: http://n4g.com/ps3/News-234173.aspx

Anyone who is already in Home, but has Qore, could probably share.

Remember Qore is USA though, and the beta keys are probably region based.

European keys should be getting sent out soon as well (they're random).

Grand Master

+Audioboxer Subscriber²

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Wait, so it wasn't actually released to the public yesterday?

lawl.

That was never an official release date.

Read my post on page 3 for official info - https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=590145094

If you actually care that is.

Grand Master

Brad.

Posted
Posted
That was never an official release date.

Read my post on page 3 for official info - https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=590145094

If you actually care that is.

I do care. I missed your post back then, but this has became more amusing than serious :/

Proficient

Si_

Posted
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Try weighing up the development scale of NXE and Home as well.

I disagee. There's a lot in the background that people don't appreciate with NXE that equals, or beats Home in terms of development task. With NXE, they moved away from having several static panes, to having a whole new actual operating system. They developed an operating system to enable 3rd parties to add features to the console in the form of application-type products, so along with that they also had to put together the development tools, etc. I fail to see how writing and testing a new operating system pales in comparison to a silly MMO application that looks never to actually be released.

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