[Official] Playstation Home

[.KICK]

Honestly, Home really failed to live up to expectations for me. That along with little content, most of which is poor and boring! I guess Sony took the risk and it did not pay off.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The risk certainly paid off, they're earning a fair bit of coin from Home. Gotta try to make back all the money plundered into PS3 development costs and free online multiplayer some how :p

The only thing I do right now is play poker and complete Xi puzzles every week. Hopefully that SCEE priority change announcement above means more content on the way. I'm sure there will be freebies and stuff around E3, but it'll probably be for SCEA only :( They were giving away half of Siren this week in US Home.

[.KICK]

The risk certainly paid off, they're earning a fair bit of coin from Home. Gotta try to make back all the money plundered into PS3 development costs and free online multiplayer some how :p

The only thing I do right now is play poker and complete Xi puzzles every week. Hopefully that SCEE priority change announcement above means more content on the way. I'm sure there will be freebies and stuff around E3, but it'll probably be for SCEA only :( They were giving away half of Siren this week in US Home.

Any actual sources of Home making serious money for Sony? You seem to forget that Home would had cost a fortune to make so they would still most likely be in debt from making the game, will be a while before they break even on dev costs!

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Any actual sources of Home making serious money for Sony? You seem to forget that Home would had cost a fortune to make so they would still most likely be in debt from making the game, will be a while before they break even on dev costs!

You do know the size of the Playstation Home team(s) were really small to start with? In fact just one team in SCEE Liverpool or London (can't remember) began work on Home.

The teams are still small, SCEE claiming they still need more people to help development.

The transition from one to the other will take some time but we acknowledge that trying to do both lines (Spaces and Content) at the same time is something we do not have the resources to do currently here in the SCEE team. We have just recruited a new Production Assistant to help tackle this and once this person starts and is up to speed you should start to see improvements.

I think some of you think it cost a waaaay lot more than it really has and took more resources from Sony than it did. The size of the teams working on it attribute greatly to why it took so bloody long to surface, then was so incomplete when it did.

With such a risky first time project no company would be putting massive teams into it's development unless they were sure costs would be re-cooped.

Now that they're starting to see some decent revenue off it and have millions of people using it, clearly more staff and resources are being green lighted.

[Sethos]

So what costs more, 4 people creating something in 2 years or 2 people creating something in 4 years?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So what costs more, 4 people creating something in 2 years or 2 people creating something in 4 years?

Depends on what the initial project budget is which determines how many staff can work on the project, and usually for how long. Delays will have cost Sony more due to this, but it still depends heavily on what the initial project budget was.

One can make a logical guess for such an ambitious project that was indeed a risk the budget would not be ridiculous amounts of money, especially not from a company swimming in red.

[AbandonedTrolley]

So what costs more, 4 people creating something in 2 years or 2 people creating something in 4 years?

:rofl: Two working for four years!! As that's two years revenue they would have missed out on compared to the four for two :D

[.KICK]

Depends on what the initial project budget is which determines how many staff can work on the project, and usually for how long. Delays will have cost Sony more due to this, but it still depends heavily on what the initial project budget was.

One can make a logical guess for such an ambitious project that was indeed a risk the budget would not be ridiculous amounts of money, especially not from a company swimming in red.

AB, I just love all your assumptions and analysis on stuff like this but unless there is actual source or info from someone who actually works for these companies then your guess is just as good as mine. Truth is no-one here knows whats going on and how the development went! Anyway back to Home, is the Red Bull Air Race thing finally working yet? Didnt work the last time I tried,was just a bunch of people standing around with fail above there head! Lol

[bob_c_b]

The massive injection of content from Capcom and EA recently should be plenty of evidence it's doing okay. It started off slow but I log in once a week to look around, the plaza and mall are amusing, I'm a big Uncharter fan so I hit that area on a regular basis and wandering through the EA space is amusing. I've been half heartedly playing with Xii, etc... Home is gradually becoming what was promised, but it was overhyped, but just like most PS3 features it is slowly taking shape to become what was promised.

[Ricardo Gil]

I log in once a week to look around, the plaza and mall are amusing

You must have a blast every week.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

AB, I just love all your assumptions and analysis on stuff like this but unless there is actual source or info from someone who actually works for these companies then your guess is just as good as mine. Truth is no-one here knows whats going on and how the development went! Anyway back to Home, is the Red Bull Air Race thing finally working yet? Didnt work the last time I tried,was just a bunch of people standing around with fail above there head! Lol

I most definitely don't know how much it actually cost, of course not, but I do know a fair bit about the general way such business projects start up and what to look for for clues about resources/finances spent. It's right in my line of study :p

I know for a fact such a project will have been given a budget and resource pool, over the years it's almost guaranteed that will fluctuate for any new project, sometimes your lucky and spend less, obviously in Home's case the delays lead to the assumption that it has in fact cost more than Sony planned. Those sort of risks will most certainly have been looked over though.

However before such a project is green lighted projections on the most important part will have been done, the potential revenue, what sort of profits can Home bring in? What advertisers or partners can Sony get to release content in Home? Home is making money, in fact it made $1,000,000 just a few weeks after it was rolled out.

The nature of it is it's uncapped expense. Home isn't a set monthly fee, you can have people spending $20 in a day in Home through micro-transactions. Of course the audience ratio of expense is going to be something ridiculous like I dunno 70:30 or something, many people won't spend a penny, but many people will spend far more than $5-10 a month. For that purpose Home has indeed been successful, it's in terms of content it's completely lacking which is why the PR release above from SCEE is assuring, the focus is going to change to content over adding a new virtual store to the Shopping Mall every few weeks.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/86b73c3b

New video for Home, apparently there's a redeem code on the wall at 25 seconds for something... Pretty cool video.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Pretty large patch incoming

What's coming on the 21st of May to SCEE Home

General

Threads will have another relatively small influx of fun and varied clothing for those of you who like to mix and match, and you'll also find a few more hairstyles available to you in the wardrobe. And we can't resist listing them: Sleek Crop, Crop, Forward Spikes, Short Hair, Spiky Hair and last but not least, Shaggy Sleek.

Home Square

Some elements of Home Square have been updated behind the scenes and as a result you'll need to download the new version of the space. We are assured you will not notice the changes but for those of you interested the elements updated are Draughts, Chess and Helicopter Hit.

EA Sports Complex

The EA Sports complex is receiving an update to add the following:

Poker

- Leader Boards

The two screens attached to the roof support pillars in the space will now have leaderboard information for daily winners, and season leaders

- Ranking

The top 100 players for the season and for the day will be ranked and you can see if you have a ranking by looking at the bottom of the leader board

- Red Tournament Table

The middle table will now become the Red Tournament table

You will need to have a positive bankroll to play on this table which means having at least 1000 points in your bankroll

- Point Rewards for Winning

On the tables your rewards will vary based on the number of players and how you finish

Green payouts for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

Red tables pays out more than Green

- Improved camera system (L1 to change, L2 to reset)

You now have 4 different views of the table you play on - standard, over head, table top view 1, table top view 2

You can look at the leader board to see how many point the daily and season winners have posted

Watch 1 of 3 video screens

View the Scoreboard slide show

Check the Ticker for updated event information

- Table placement

By moving the location of the tables we will be able to reduce the cross chatter between tables that occurs while texting

This change should also eliminate the annoying "video screen in my ear effect" that occurs on certain seats

- Music (R2 to change volume)

We have added a music track to the Poker game to make things a little more interesting

Volume control will also be added so you can toggle between 3 volume levels or turn it off completely (R2)

- Blind Timers

Now increment based on the number of people remaining at the table

- Blind Time on Status board

When you walk up to a table you now see how high the blind is and when it will double

Bug reporting

As a point of interest we are investigating ways of gathering bug reports from you in the future. Forum threads simply don't work for this as duplicate reports and general chat complicate and greatly increase the amount of work involved in simply finding the facts. In the meantime we will continue to look to our long term beta testers to report through our existing process. We hope to have something usable by all by the next patch.

Patch v1.21

And now onto v1.21 of the Home core client and the changes it brings. The major difference between ourselves and SCEA is that they will be releasing Picture Frames with 1.21. Whilst the moderation hurdles have been overcome our senior management (for better or worse!) are still reassessing their approach to user owned or generated content.

Until these concerns can be tackled we will hold back on releasing Picture Frames here in SCEE. However, our intention is to release this feature as soon as possible and we will let you know how things progress behind the scenes from time to time.

And now onto the lists of changes and fixes:

Improvements

? The chat log has been updated with a number of new enhancements:

- By clicking the left stick you can toggle the chat log between three modes: normal, expanded and minimised.

? It is also possible to switch the chat log directly into expanded mode by pressing up or down on the controller d-pad.

- While minimised the chat log is reduced to a small icon in the corner of the screen. This icon will still fade in and out to indicate whether new chat is being received.

- While expanded you can scroll through individual lines of text in the chat log. By pressing [CROSS] with a line highlighted they are able to open an options menu for the user who spoke.

- Lines of text are coloured in the chat log to reflect the colour choice of the user who typed them.

- Your friends will now have an icon placed beside their ID in the chat log.

? Emotes are now available when text communication has been disabled.

? It is possible to target things while sat on the floor.

? The process of moving between spaces has been streamlined which should make relocating a bit faster.

? The loading time for smaller images, such as thumbnails, posters and map chips, has been Changes Changes

? We have reduced loading times when using the virtual stores to browse and purchase items.

? We have changed the way furniture is saved in a Club house. This should stop furniture going missing if the player placing the furniture exits Home immediately after changing the layout.

? When you log in to Home, if there is a problem retrieving your commerce information then you will be returned to the welcome screen with an error message.

? When you attempt to telephone a friend that has voice chat disabled you will now see the warning in an alert message instead of a pop-up.

? If you choose not to download an update patch for Home and then attempt to log on you will be returned to the welcome screen with an appropriate error message.

? We?ve swapped the dark grey and dark blue pop-up colours for magenta and turquoise to make text easier to read in the chat log.

? Club ownership is now indicated by a crown icon instead of a star.

? We?ve slowed down the speed at whiBug fixese furniture.

Bug fixes

? Fixed a bug that could cause items of furniture placed in the Club house to go missing (this is separate from the change to make saving the layout more robust).

? Fixed a problem that could cause Home rewards to be lost after a network error.

? Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when the user is signed out of the PSN while logging on to Home.

? Fixed a bug that would send users to the wrong place if they accepted an invitation to a Personal Space just as its owner relocated elsewhere.

? The option to make cross regional telephone calls from public spaces is no longer greyed out.

? Fixed a bug where spawning inside the trigger radius of certain mini-games would result in the user automatically joining them.

? Fixed a bug that would result in a ?typing? chat bubble being displayed permanently if the user muted someone while they were typing.

? Changed Game Launching error messages so that line breaks show up correctly in them now.

? Fixed a bug that would cause alert messages to remain on screen after being disconnected.

? Fixed a bug that could cause a crash if the user was disconnected while making a purchase in Home.

? The furniture placement camera will now respect the control inversion settings specified in the Menu Pad.

? Adjusted the way characters get up from seating to make them less prone to popping in and out of seats that are close together.

? Fixed a bug that would result in characters standing on top of certain types of seating after standing.

? Fixed a bug that would cause certain parts of some animations to ?stick? if the character stood up while playing them (for example if the user stood up while yawning, their mouth would be stuck open).

? Fixed a bug that would allow the character to run or slide while performing spot idle animations.

Source: http://community.eu.playstation.com/playst.:Dhread.id=175729

Finally got my EA poker rankings :D

[BGM]

that free house.. where the hell is it?

i don't see it in the estate shop...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

that free house.. where the hell is it?

i don't see it in the estate shop...

As usual it's SCEA only so far... (N)

[BGM]

As usual it's SCEA only so far... (N)

boo, down with SCEA :D

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Apart from the fairly sizeable patch tomorrow and the EA space poker update, Resistance space incoming also

Resistance Space Opens in PlayStation?Home>

Defend Chicago Station from

Chimera attack in the new Resistance Space: it's fast, ferocious and free!

City, Date: We knew that the Chimera advanced swiftly but we didn't know it was this bad: the news just in is that the power-hungry wretches have attacked PlayStation?Home, the free, interactive space for PLAYSTATION?3 users. This new area in Home features a recreation of the Chicago Railway Station level from the current PS3 hit Resistance 2, which sees America under siege from the Chimeran hordes. Your challenge is to fend off wave after wave of Chimeran aerial forces with a single weapon. It's not just any weapon, though: it's a four-barrelled, quick-repeating turret gun.

You can find your way to the new Resistance Space via the PlayStation?Home World Map. It pays to be swift: there's a poster in the space displaying a promotional code - and the first 3,000 users to redeem the code will get a free Resistance T-shirt for their customisable PlayStation?Home avatar.

The Resistance Space will be a gated area open only to users aged 18 or older.

Video of the space/mini-game here - http://community.eu.playstation.com/playst...hread.id=177832

Gonna try getting up and early and nabbing a free tshirt, doubt I'll get one though. Although if people have told the truth about their age on Home

The Resistance Space will be a gated area open only to users aged 18 or older.

This should mean only about 50 people are able to access the s:pce :p

[qThis Week in PlayStation Home: Resistance Space Unleashed, Game Launching Confirmedd

Whether you are a heroic Sentinel triggerman or a heartless Chimeran killing machine ? it's high time you log into SCEA's PlayStation Home and join your fellow soldiers as we launch (pun intended) into the next phase of the platform's evolution.

This Thursday, May 21st, the epic sci-fi shooter franchise Resistance comes blasting into Home with a dedicated game space featuring an awesome turret-style FPS mini-game, reward items, leaderboards and full-on game launching support.

Visit the space early in the day and use the "Four Barrels of Fury" mini-game to trigger your itchy finger. You will be awarded special virtual goods as you further hone your Chimeran ship blasting skills and a nearby global leaderboard will capture and display the highest scores. Then take advantage of your war-torn surroundings and meet up with fellow Resistance fans, old and new, and launch into either co-op or competitive multiplayer matches of the critically-acclaimed apocalyptic shooter, Resistance 2, developed by Insomniac Games.

On launch day, your favorite Community Managers (ahem!) will be on-site to battle with you, and the folks from Insomniac will be dropping in over time to do the same (like next Thursday, from 5:00-6:00pm PT). Best of all, we'll be designating every Friday night from 6:00pm ? 12:00am "Resistance 2: SRPA Siege" nights. We're inviting you all to show up and contribute to the carnage, whether you are currently fighting the virus or happily succumbing to it.

See you in Home!

Video here also: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/05/20/...hing-confirmed/

Edited May 20, 2009 by Audioboxer

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Got my free Tshirt, looks pretty cool, for the lazies try this code but I don't know if it's unique.

XHFG-FRBM-8G24

Redeem in PS store.

A new space has been added called the "Presentation Podium"

Most likely a hint that E3 is going to be presented Live within Home.

Edited May 21, 2009 by Audioboxer

[Jimmy0]

XHFG-FRBM-8G24

Worked for me. (Y)

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Worked for me. (Y)

It was limited to 3,000 for the whole of EU.

Came 3rd in my first game of poker, 1st/2nd/3rd gives out a positive payroll, I got 250 chips. You need a minimum of 1,000 to play on the red table.

[peacemf]

are the updates really SLOW for you guys???

it takes ages to download the 35mb update for home square....the update for the home application was fast however :(

[ramsy66]

May just not be my thing but I don't understand Home.

Typing with the virtual keyboard takes forever so I can never be bothered to talk, so all there is to do is walk around, change your character's look and mess with furniture.

Am I missing something?

[jelli]

May just not be my thing but I don't understand Home.

Typing with the virtual keyboard takes forever so I can never be bothered to talk, so all there is to do is walk around, change your character's look and mess with furniture.

Am I missing something?

My thoughts exactly :)

[Sethos]

May just not be my thing but I don't understand Home.

Typing with the virtual keyboard takes forever so I can never be bothered to talk, so all there is to do is walk around, change your character's look and mess with furniture.

Am I missing something?

That is Home in a nutshell basically, also the reason why you see so little interest in the service from non-attached media, it is just a 3D chat-room with a few interactive features.

[jelli]

May just not be my thing but I don't understand Home.

Typing with the virtual keyboard takes forever so I can never be bothered to talk, so all there is to do is walk around, change your character's look and mess with furniture.

Am I missing something?

My thoughts exactly :)