Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds

Slatterz writes "Sony and Microsoft are poised to do battle in virtual worlds. The console kids both announced Second Life-style virtual environments at the Tokyo Game Show today. Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation. Players are represented by avatars which live a virtual life — engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Comments

"Oh yay"

[KeX3]

So, two clones of something that is little more than a furry playground? My pythonic "yaaay" just isn't lethargic enough to express my feelings.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Negatyfus]

I thought this was pretty cool, that is, until I read your post. Seeing the error of my ways, I will now live a life free of virtual worlds and offer my sincere apologies for having a different opinion. Please accept twenty self-inflicted lashes of the whip to my back to atone for my sin.

Re:"Oh yay"

[TDyl]

Posted by someone with "Fox" in his/her name???

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be less of 'em, but, my god, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more non-furs in Second life than there are furs

There is a MUCH higher (furs)/(non furs) ratio in Second Life than in meatspace and, face it, most of the internet.

Nice try.

Re:"Oh yay"

[Ash-Fox]

Posted by someone with "Fox" in his/her name???

Oh yes, I am a furry. But by the original poster's logic, I would certainly know if this was the case, no? :)

Re:"Oh yay"

[electrictroy]

Trivia:

One of the first (perhaps the first) online virtual worlds was hosted by Quantum Link for the Commodore 64. Connections were made by modems with speeds from 0.3 to 2.4 kbit/s. Q-Link eventually renamed itself America Online, aka AOL.

"Q-Link's Habitat is a multi-participant online virtual environment. A cyberspace. Each participant ("player") uses a home computer (Commodore 64) as an intelligent, interactive client, communicating via modem and telephone over a commercial packet-switching network to a centralized, mainframe host system. The client software provides the user interface, generating a real-time animated display of what is going on..." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Link

Note that it says "animated". This wasn't some text-based BBS, but a fully-graphical interface similar to the world wide web, but with much lower resolution (320x200).
.

Re:"Oh yay"

[TDyl]

Verily I concede (while stroking your back and tickling under your chin).

Re:"Oh yay"

[Mr2cents]

be as lazy as you like :)

Isn't that a very elaborate way to be lazy?

Re:"Oh yay"

[Mordaximus]

Games Computers Play might have been just slightly older: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n6/GamesComputers.html

Article misleading?

[AndyboyH]

Having RTFA, and also having a background as a games dev.
Home is a virtual world, but isn't Microsoft's avatars pretty much just the same approach as Miis?

I think the article's a little misleading in implying that Microsoft are making some virtual world (like Home or 2nd Life), when instead, it's just giving devs a representation of the player to put into their own games, like how Miis are currently handled on the Wii.

Re:Article misleading?

[somersault]

It's funny how the article also talks about home like it's only started development, yet it will be out in November. We've been waiting for it for something like 2 years now. If the MS thing is just like Miis then there is nothing like a 'battle' going on..

I hope Home is as technically advanced as GTA with the ability to drive around and play minigames. I wonder if there will be any overlap between the two. Getting your Home avatar into GTA would be pretty cool, and I'd prefer a better method for finding multiplayer servers as well..

Re:Article misleading?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually another useless article from The Inquirer, republished on pcauthority.com.au.

Sure, Home bears a glancing resemblance to Second Life, albeit a homogenized one, but the NXE bears absolutely no resemblance other than they both have avatars and feature text and voice chat. Virtual world, NXE ain't.

Where is slashdot's bullshit filter when we need it?

escaping to another world.

[HungryHobo]

"engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Strange how people will sit in a bedroom controlling an avatar which is decorating it's bedroom....

Although I can understand to an extent. there have been times when I was unhappy and being able to spend a few hours in a virtual world completely disconnected from my real life somehow helped and overall made me a happier person. Don't play now that real life is good.

I avoid WOW at all cost though. I want to play it but I've seen what it does to people and I know I'd get hooked.

Re:escaping to another world.

[elrous0]

I've seen crackheads less addicted than some of my friends who play WoW.

Hurrah.

[cordsie]

Bet nobody will buy Vista in their virtual world either.

Re:Real Moneyz?

[Ash-Fox]

Now the real question is will people be able to make real income off these clones as many have and failed in Second Life?

A lot of people are succeeding making money off Second life. Of course, the people who just go into Second life and have no understanding about it just go about setting up random stuff, trying to make a business without even trying to understand the economy in Second life, absolutely fail.

A lot of people assume making a good amount of money off Second life is easy, it is not.

I'm not a young hippster

[Holammer]

My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic). I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar. Meeting up with pals in Home would be ridiculous when everyone looks like someone fresh from college. Miis and the new Live avatars while a lot more simple offer a better way to create a good caricature of yourself. Sony should watch and learn.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[Ash-Fox]

You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.

You're missing the point, this guy does not want to look like a young hipster. He may not want a representation of himself, but he obviously does not want to be a young hipster.

Re:I'm not a young hippster

[ilsie]

Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them?

Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?

Second Life!

[Chrisq]

I have enough trouble keeping up with the first one.

Apples and Oranges...

[Otis_INF]

Sony's 'Home' is really not comparable with Microsoft's new avatars/Xbox UI. Home is a virtual world, MS' UI is just that, a UI.

This is not targeting Second Life

[argent]

What has been described in the press so far doesn't sound anything like Second Life, except at the most superficial level. These systems are targeting things like IMVU and Puzzle Pirates. There are more similarities between Slashdot and Livejournal than there are between Second Life and Sony Home.

Re:oh good grief.

[Erik from Breda]

Its like reality TV, why would my daily business be sitting in an armchair watching other people go about their daily business?

Now I get it: it is a manager's tool!

what an awful article

[YesIAmAScript]

Sony announced Home a long time ago. And yeah, it does look a bit like Second Life. But given that Second Life is meant to be like real life, it is odd that other things look like it too?

MS didn't announce any kind of virtual world at all. They have avatars now, but no world to roam in. It's not anything like Second Life or such.

Honestly, this whole article reads like more Second Life PR. I can't believe how much PR these guys get. A guy on the plane next to me two days ago was reading an article that said explained how Second Life is hot again, that companies are "moving in" again. Which of course is absurd, Second Life was never hot before and it isn't hot now, and companies "move in" at times, rarely having any positive effect on their sales or Second Life for that matter.

Linden Labs has some of the most amazing PR I've seen.

Re:you mean, you actually recognized what it was?

[ozphx]

It was well labelled. It even came with a note. Apparantly with some effort for keybinding I would be able to make it urinate *and* ejaculate. Also it was "compatible" with someones sex animation system, or whatever the hell.

I did put it on, scale it to around 12 foot long, and go walk around IBM SOA island for a while, while their foreign outsourced builders told me to "Please wear off that penis".

So I guess the moral of the story is that there is an objective to SL, trolling. I think I won, because I got booted by IBM :P