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PlayStation Home Beta Opens to the Public
Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for PlayStation Home, the virtual world designed for PlayStation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.
it's like Myspace. Let's see if the same model works more than once.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/12/
Makes you want to rush out and get a PS3.... NOT.
Test your net with Netalyzr
http://penny-arcade.com/ has an extremely critical take on it.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
I loaded it up early this morning, and in short, it's terrible. It's everything bad about Second Life meets the Xbox NXE meets Miis. I was going to write a lengthy explaination as to what's wrong, but Tycho over at Penny Arcade has done a much better job hitting on everything, and using bigger words in the process. So without further ado:
If you want to use Home, you don't need to buy anything. If you want to spend money on premium clothing/decor items, the feel free. Its $0.50 for almost every item, have fun.
I don't see a flaw with this in a BETA -- they don't know how many things people will pay for, or what price to make them, but its a good time to find out.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I can't say I would consider any of these virtual worlds successful, and google was smart to quickly scrap their foray into this genre.
I guess it somewhat depends what you consider successful, but profitability is as good a gauge as any. Was second life profitable? I know a lot of people who play world of warcraft, but I work in IT and I know exactly zero who play second life. I knew a few that played the fairly popular website where you create pets and care for them, tho I can't recall the name of it even. (Total waste of time in my perspective).
So like the summary, I'm left wondering what is the upshot of being in this virtual world, especially if grouping up and exploring socially isn't built in? Honestly in my book, this sort of crap ranks up there with chain letters, tripod websites, and other online things I avoid because the thought of them makes me feel dirty.
Overclockers
Home is basically a collection of mini-games tied together by a giant pain-in-the-ass world where you have to walk around and stand in a real line in order to use a piece of virtual equipment.
Movie trailers are not the worst idea in the world. I might be interested in watching movie trailers on my PS3. What I'm not interested in doing is logging in to Home, going through a million loading screens, and then watching a trailer (which one? Whichever one they're showing! Want to change it? Too bad!) in a virtual theater full of actual jackasses jumping up and down in front of the screen ("Yo dawg, I know you like TV, so we put a TV inside your TV so you can watch TV while you watch TV!") and make homophobic comments over the voice chat.
Meanwhile, there's nothing to actually DO with anyone you would meet in Home, so the 'social MMO' aspect of Home is totally pointless. I keep waiting for Ken Kutaragi to hold a press conference just to announce, "The Aristocrats!"
It seems you are one of the guys defending their flawed business model.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Why, exactly? Who would you rather hear it from, a plumber? Remember, business people are geeks, that's why they're in business. What better place for a business geek than in business?
And aside from that, anyone can see their business model is shit. Or flawed, if you like.
That rambling Penny Arcade fanboy drivel is hilarious in its desperation to try trash Home. Home does generate an insane amount of terror in the fanboys of other platforms where they start lashing out incoherently.
The scope of Home and the amount of work Sony has done is staggering.
There are 18 million PS3 already worldwide with 14 million PSN accounts. So the massive amount of traffic on the Home servers yesterday was understandable. No other MMORPG or online world has ever been build to handle such a gigantic userbase.
So other than the initial login servers getting swamped for the first few hours the service went live it was incredibly smooth and lagfree even though every single space in Home was maxed out with people. It has been one gigantic party going on for since yesterday.
Everyone is filling out their friends list with people they've met. People are playing the in Home games together, checking out the initial game spaces for Uncharted and Far Cry 2, dancing in the social music area, or just hanging out chatting with their old or new friends.
There are things to unlock in the various games throughout Home for your avatar or personal spaces. And of course there are things you can buy if you wish to.
The party/matchmaking/game launching is incredibly cool - although more games need to patched for support. There are about 10 right now.
If you are a solo player you can setup up an online game and then invite or have people join you while you are in Home. It shows which game you have setup under your name for other to see. Once you are ready you all launch together right into the game as a party. When you are done you all drop right back to where you were in Home together. So if you have a group of friends you can all hang out at your personal space before and after games or anywhere inside of Home.
But for clans it is even cooler. You can setup a clubhouse for your clan and everyone can come and go when they want. For clan gaming nights everyone goes to the club and you are all able to jump into games together and come right back to your clan clubhouse. Eventually you will be able to stream movies up on your wall or screenshots of various games up on the wall of your clanhouse in addition to having it decked out in the style of your clan.
And then there are the third party game spaces that almost every console developer is in the process of creating. You don't have to have the game to enter these areas. Each of these spaces look just like the real game and give you a feel for what the game is like with the overall art style of the space, pictures from the games up on the walls, and movies streaming from the game.
Companies like EA are creating entire pavilions for their sports games with every game having separate areas inside the space. There are mini-games inside of the game spaces that unlock items for you or let you into special areas. Anything you can do in a game you can do inside of Home.
And there are already third party non-game Spaces going into Home like Red Bull's space that is going live next week.
A year from now it looks like there will be easily more than a hundred different Sony, third party game, and third party non-game company spaces in Home.
Sony has been working on this amazing world since the early PS2 days and it shows. Looking over at it right now with people everywhere inside of Home running around having a blast already, it is hard to imagine how insanely cool Home will be as it continues to grow with the huge number of additional spaces and content over the next five years.
What better place for a business geek than in business?
Oh, I dont know. Maybe the bottom of the ocean?
I just bought my second PS3. I'm a PS3 advocate, but frankly Home is two years too late. I think Sony went into this generation expecting to coast on their reputation from previous generations, and didn't do enough to actually win people over. The PS3 is the best BluRay player on the market, and a solid console, but frankly I'm not sure it even matters anymore.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Where are the dedicated servers for Call of Duty 4 & 5, GT5p, RSV2? Warhawk is the only game I've played on my PS3 which had dedicated servers.
I have a PS3, but I play on a friends' 360 regularly. Live is so good I've got a Live account even though I don't have a 360 myself. It's just better than PSN - it's faster (updates, menus, messaging - Live itself, I don't mean the games), people actually have mics and use them, you can form groups (parties), you can see what your friends are playing, the reputation system means you can prefer and avoid players and the player matching will take that into account, the list goes on and on. PSN is lacking so many features Live has had for years it's pretty embarrassing. It does cost money, but Microsoft use that money to ensure the Live servers are fast (PSN takes an age to show your own trophies, Live is virtually instant) and they can shove money at game publishers and get early releases and exclusive content.
I fucking hate Microsoft and think the 360 isn't particularly impressive - DVDs and no mandatory hard drive sucks, everybody with a 360 I know has had the RROD at least once and worn out many controllers - but even I can see Live is just plain better than PSN. The only people who don't think so are fanboys and people who've never used it. A few games with dedicated server doesn't make up for the deficiencies, even when you take the price of Live into account.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
It depends on if you think Home is the lynchpin of their overall plan to become "Microsoft's bitch" in the online world. At least it's free. ;) I think there will be some big reworking and retooling of the Home stuff as it leaves beta... (and into another beta! heh.)
:) That being said, perhaps Home will become the tool it needs to be and less of the "MMO" it is trying to be.... *shrug* (I'm skeptical... because Sony's big, cumbersome and glacial...)
Besides "flawed business model" is like "synergy"... makes you want to hit someone with a bat every time you hear it.
SCEA has been reportedly saying that SCJ (or whatever it's called over there) is basically clueless when it comes to the importance of online and community in the new console generation. Now granted, I'm not so sure the whole "community" aspect needs to be the sole focus of the big picture, but it does have a place (just not in my universe... so I'm old.) But if SCEA can see Sony Japan's reluctance to try and do battle with MS in the online arena (networked games don't count), it must be patently obvious to everyone.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba
Yet can't push out graphics that look any better than the 360.
Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3
By paying off anybody that used the competing format. So much hassle, I can only imagine how much work went into writing all the cheques.
Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft
Yep, this is true - it was the only way they could stop most of the rest their developers going cross-platform. Squenix, anyone?
Developed the incredible and gigantic Home online service
incredible, adj: So implausible as to elicit disbelief. Yep, that about covers it, though I'm sure not in the way you'd like.
Branched out into smaller but high quality game development with PSN games
Wow, and the Xbox 360 has only had that since fucking launch. I bet it took a whole load of effort to copy that 3 year-old idea.
Created at movie download service for sub-HD movie purchases and rentals
Yawn. On the Xbox 360 since 2006 in HD.
Created the console with most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history
Yet nobody has managed to translate that 'enormous advantage' to a game that looks even slightly better on the PS3 than it does on the 360. In fact, GTA4 on the PS3 looks worse .
I'm sure Rockstar are MS fanboys too, of course.
Disclaimer: I don't have a next-gen system. There's a 360 in the house but I'm a PC gamer and I'm staying that way - but, I know bullshit when I read it.
This list makes me lol hard, and it's from an AC too.
-]Phreak Out[-
virtual bootlegging at the theatre
and rsmith-mac terminated them
Well done for quoting completely mythical 'fanboys' who bear no relevance to the points that I raised.
Care to actually answer a single fucking thing I said?
"Home is two years too late"
Looks at the entire PS3 community worldwide packed onto the Home servers...
I don't see it.
"coast on their reputation"
Yep, that's why they just tacked on a controller gimmick to their same old hardware...wait no that's Nintendo.
They tacked on a "controller gimmick" like Guitar Hero and Rockband... the new controllers coming out these days are actually fun and immersive, and have expanded gameplay from "jam on abstract function-linked buttons!" to "interact directly with objects in the game world, via advanced human interface methods or just using controllers that physically represent the object you're controlling in the game on a high-fidelity analog."
Let's see Sony since the PS2 has:
* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba
They asked IBM to do this IIRC. Also: it's a pain in the ass to code for, and ROI is minimal if you're not writing high-budget scientific simulation programs. A lot of modern supercomputers still use current processors, some have tried Cell but it seems mostly experimental. This is a good field for Cell; game console... not so much. From a business and consumer perspective this was a mistake; too much expense (cost, price) for too little return, and much cost passed on to the consumer.
* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3
i.e. Marketing format war with HD-DVD, in order to push the PS3 and secure the rights to a licensing monopoly in order to rake in cash while making BluRay discs more expensive (no competition). They learned well from DVD+- and Beta/VHS; if you let competing tech get a hold, you'll have to price war with them and lower costs to consumers for the final product to gain market share. They raised costs for manufacturers by banning combined HD-DVD/BluRay as per agreement; and increased market penetration by pushing PS3 as an incidental BluRay player. If they had a legal monopoly in the game console field, they would have gotten a DOJ injunction for this stunt.
* Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft
Yet Nintendo puts out far better stuff... plus Nintendo intentionally broke up and spread their internal development worldwide. Division One brought us The Legend of Zelda and Metroid on the Famicom Disk System; they are now Retro Studios, a second-party developer created by Nintendo by shipping all assets related to Division One (prior and current projects at the time) into a second-party subsidiary. Nintendo has several of these.
* Developed the incredible and gigantic Home online service
It's been out for a day and has proven itself to be a piece of shit.
* Branched out into smaller but high quality game development with PSN games
Competing with WiiWare and XBoX XNA, but I don't know if Microsoft plans to ever develop its own first-party stuff on XNA.
* Created at movie download service for sub-HD movie purchases and rentals
Never heard of it.
* Created the console with most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history
Big deal. Have you seen Megaman 9? That's probably the most awesome game I've seen in a while. Tales of Symphonia 2 also is good. Lots of stuff out there is good... most of it's just "look we have shiny graphics" crap. Eye candy doesn't make a good game, it makes a good movie.
Yeah, they are just 'coasting' on their reputation...
They pretty much are. Most of the industry is coasting on good graphics and flashy technical specs, rather than anything substantial like fun or good games.
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The Dreamcast had better graphics capabilities, mainly due to vastly more texture memory. Sega went out of its way to show this off a lot by making stuff in Sonic Adventure rather non-repetitive.
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* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba
Not like it will actually be *used*. Its not based on the x86 architecture which eliminates it from being used on both Windows PCs and Macs. And honestly, the speed of the media the console is reading from is a much larger bottleneck than its CPU.
* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3
* Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft
* Developed the incredible and gigantic Home online service
* Branched out into smaller but high quality game development with PSN games
* Created at movie download service for sub-HD movie purchases and rentals
* Created the console with most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history
Face it, this generation Sony can't compete with Nintendo and MS.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No furries.
That's about all good that can be said about it. This genre is inherently unworkable: it's a solution looking for a problem, it's a "virtual world" for the sake of being "virtual" and futuristic. Home addresses no need of the average consumer, it has very little entertainment value, and any applications to organizational tasks are better suited to simpler systems like IM.
When will these companies realize that you generally tend to invent things to make things easier, not abstract them in a confusing mess of real-life analogies and bloated 3D interfaces? Reminds me of the AOL-esque portals of the 90s.
Now that is a rare sight.
It's like those stories back in the decades after WW2 where people would find lone Japanese soldiers on tiny islands alone who didn't know the war was over and their side had lost.
I may be speaking out of turn as I've not had a chance to run Home yet, but the thing that killed it long ago for me is the lack of user programmable elements. That was the pony that tricked out Second Life, the entire reason for its popularity.
That is the reason why the world is as sterile as Penny Arcade has noted. I'm going to check it out just to see what they have done, but without REAL user customization I can't see ever spending much time there.
And I'm not a Second Life devotee or anything along those lines - I just observe what kinds of things draw people in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Something doesn't become a lie simply because you say it's a lie. No one wants to waste their fucking time with pointless advertisements, or lineups for crappy arcade games.
There is comedy to be had though. A friend of mine walked around with a female avatar, and was quickly swarmed by males and friend invites. Even when he decided to talk his manly voice did not detract.
* Grown the most awesome marijuana in the world and given it all to you.
When the PS3 first came out, I derided them for pushing BluRay, which IIRC was the main reason the console came out so late (?). What I've come to realize is that BluRay is the PS3's saving grace. If they had gone with DVDs like the 360 did, there would be little reason to own one.
I own all three consoles, and I find the PS3 to be a capable multimedia machine. I use it to play movies and we've rented some off the PlayStation network. But I only own one game for it, compared to my 4 Wii and 9 360 titles.
Xbox Fanboys: "Teh 360 is just a powerful as teh PS3"
Hilarious losers.
No one ever says the 360 is just as powerful as the PS3. It's not. What I find interesting is that you'd never know the difference unless you read the specs. The PS3 is a engineering gem and a marketing disaster.
I know this sounds ridiculous, but just hear me out.
What if we just like the game selection on the 360?
What if we didn't buy our console to get into some e-genitalia-measuring contest with random people on the Internet?
Here is what I wrote in the PS3 suggestion thread after playing home:
" Hi, new to the forum and just want to get my 2 cents in. I tried home and like the potential of what it can be, there isn't much to do at the moment, but I definitely can see where it could go given time. With that said, I can see a lot of negatives that can kill home, especially this early in its infancy. The first and biggest problem I see is that the prices are too high for many. I know some people disagree, but for many of us, it is out of the question for different reasons. Some just cannot imagine spending real money on virtual accessories, especially with no guarantee that home will be around in a few years. A LOT of people are in a financial bind with the way the economy is at the moment and are saving their money for more important things like food/bills/gass..etc, there is no way they are going to waste money on something like this. I personally fall in between those two. Finally, there is just too many people trying this, Sony with home, Microsoft with avatars, games with DLC, itunes, netflix, etc,etc People are having to prioritize where their microtransactions are going. Both Sony and Microsoft will get money at first, but it will eventually taper off with time.
Another negative affect is that you will be creating two classes of people, the have and the have nots. Your going to see rich brats running around with all the best clothes/items/living spaces while everyone else is living in the equivalent of cardboard houses and donating clothes. Not exactly a place the have nots will want to visit.
Now, with that said, I can see a possible solution to this problem. If I was Sony, I would get advertisers to pay to put their real world item brands in home (coke, Pepsi, nike, levis, Olivia,Toyota..etc) and give the virtual clothes/itmes away for free. In exchange, sony can give the companies stats about their products, keep track of what people are wearing, what items are popular. They can even put in items not yet released to see what people say about it and if its popular or a dud.
The other thing is that I would keep the option to pay in real world money for those who have it (and willing to use it), but I would have an alternative in-game money that people can get through activities in home, much like an MMO. These can be things like filling out surveys about products, to having competitions sponsored by advertisers, to scavenger hunts, to sitting and getting paid to watch ads, to get paid to go to sponsors home channels and getting paid to play their games (pop the Pepsi balloons, hit the whack a coke, beat the wrestling Toyota bear..etc). I hope you see where I am going with this. This would seem to be the best WIN-WIN scenario for everyone.
Like I said, I can see the potential of what it can be, it just needs a little work(and a lot more content) to get it started. "
------------
I also want to add that they need to start showing some actual movies in the theater to try and bring in some people and give people TV sets so that they can watch their own videos/music with friends in their home space. There needs to be SOMETHING to bring people in, so far there is nothing really FUN to do. One other quick thing, why is everything crammed together and scarce? The developers have near god like building powers and they create this small, sparse, sterile, cramped areas and buildings. I hope this was just a stress tess minimum stuff and the real goodies will start coming out. I do believe home could be great, however the are kidding themselves if they believe people are going to pay for all the cool features through microtransactions.
In retrospective it wasn't the botched hardware design that was the real fiasco for the Xbox 360 since Xbox owners showed that they will put up with defective hardware and continue to fork out hundreds of bucks over and over again for replacement consoles.
And what does that tell you? If you were a third party developer what would that tell you?
I don't like Home at all, but you seem to be the typical Sony Hater who is using the opportunity to spread a lot of your most favored misinformation.
Not like it will actually be *used*. Its not based on the x86 architecture which eliminates it from being used on both Windows PCs and Macs. And honestly, the speed of the media the console is reading from is a much larger bottleneck than its CPU.
Except by tens, and eventually hundreds of millions of PS3s... that is not a negligable number, and it is even doing some practical good for things like Folding At Home. ...And what is so great about BluRay?
Obviously not much of a movie watcher. The increase in quality across the board (sound, resolution, color) is well worth the format.
I think a replacement is at least ten years off, the industry cannot switch sooner even if some other far larger format arrives.... but with BluRay expanding to 400GB discs that the current PS3 can read, just when is that supposed to happen? ...And name me some of Sony's first party games.
You are joking, right? Right?
Because surley anyone even a little close to gaming could name some really beloved and well-known titles like God of War, or Ratchet & Clank. Going down the list of newer stuff there's Resistance, or the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus series. Or the monster that is Metal Gear Solid (and I don't like it at all myself, but tons of people are drawn to the thing like flies). Or Gran Turismo.
The PS2 had a wealth of great first party developers and they are going full steam on the PS3 now. I didn't even mention things like the upcoming Killzone 2, since I don't think anyone really had much attachment to the first episode (I never played it). ...Just like MS and Nintendo did?(smaller high quality PSN games)
Now Microsoft kind of did that first, but I would argue Sony did it much better. From the lack of download sizes, to the quality and range of stuff they offer I think PSN is well ahead of either platform in that regard.
Microsoft has made a good move with XBA, but I don't know in the end as a gamer I would be better served from the output there compared to somewhat fewer, but much better polished PSN games that are numerous. In fact most of the gaming I do on the PS3 is PSN game related.
Face it, this generation Sony can't compete with Nintendo and MS.
What you should probably face yourself is that they are catching up rapidly. Not that Home will help in any way I think, but in all other things the PS3 offers it makes for a great all-around gaming package in a way the other systems do not.
I do think the Wii will probably hold the lead the entire generation though, it seems unlikely anyone could possibly surpass them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That the Xbox is a dead end market with a massively inflated installed base of people who wont be buying multiple copies of your games like they are willing to with the defective console.
And that not only are your games not going to sell as well due to the absurd numbers of people with 3,4,5 or more consoles those people aren't going to have the cash to buy as many games due to wasting hundreds of dollars on replacement hardware.
And that your longterm installed base has an very low limit due to there not being that many people dumb enough to buy a console that is defective by design.
Which is exactly what we are seeing in the worldwide sales figures for the 360. The 360 is selling at almost exactly the same rate as the first Xbox marketplace failure - no matter how hard the idiots at vgchartz try to make it look like it is outselling the first Xbox.
The 360 will barely outsell the Xbox worldwide by the time it dies in the market late next year or early 2010. Maybe it will get close to 30 million compared to 25 for the first Xbox marketplace flop. Not much to show for wasting 7 years and 8 billion dollars for Microsoft.
Crossplatform titles are already selling better on the PS3 even in the US which is the 360's only real viable market due to the massive numbers of people with multiple consoles inflating the installed base.
* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba
Not like it will actually be *used*. Its not based on the x86 architecture which eliminates it from being used on both Windows PCs and Macs. And honestly, the speed of the media the console is reading from is a much larger bottleneck than its CPU.
Right, it's not x86, it's Power PC. That leaves Windows out of the running (who cares?) but Linux/Unix can run it no problem, IBM sells Bladeservers that run it, there are several companies trying to get into the daughter card processor market with the Cell processor. In theory OSX Leopard/Tiger could be modified to run on the Cell processor, both OS's are x86/PowerPC agnostic.
* Help push through the next gen media format BluRay and included it in the PS3
yah.... I have trouble arguing with this... Mainly because the arguments you are trying to use aren't actually negatives... kinda like trying to argue against going outside because the sky is blue... Try again with an actual argument.
* Massively upgraded their first party developer studio array to over 20 compared to only 10 for Nintendo and, lol, 3 for Microsoft
That looks like a bit more then just 'nothing'... in fact, those look like some highly rated games... what does Microsoft have again? Halo 3 rated a good 9.5, and how many of the above are rated at or above a 9.5? And that's all you could name for the XBox?
* Developed the incredible and gigantic Home online service
Actually agree with you there, no interest in PS3 Home...
... the PSN store, while good, isn't spectacular, no argument there.
* Created the console with most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history
While your statement about how it compares to the 360 works, you comparison against the Wii is just plain dumb... Of course it looks no better on standard def! It's designed for High Def! That is one of the dumbest arguments I've seen, get a High Def TV and see how the Wii graphics suck in comparison to a PS3 or 360 running 1080i (can the 360 push it that high? not sure).
Face it, this generation Sony can't compete with Nintendo and MS.
Sony is competing, it's not doing the greatest but it's there and selling more. They've made some dumb decisions, (home), some smart decisions (BlueRay FTW!) and have made progress... who knows, they may just pull out in the lead this generation after all...
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
I keep wanting to see Apple make use of it in OS X Servers, since OS X is x86/PowerPC agnostic. However OS X Snow Leopard is going to be x86 only... bummer... "Grand Central" sounds like something perfectly made for the Cell processor.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Yes, if it was for 'teh BluRay' those 140 million PS2 owners out there would of been glad to have instead:
Wii
A fucking GameCube with a novelty controller bolted on
or
360
The worst console hardware in history
The noisiest console in history
Drives that scratch or destroy their disks
No way to easily upgrade their harddrives without massively overpriced Microsoft only drives
No keyboard and mouse support
50 dollar a year online fees
No dedicated servers for games
Crappy P2P online gaming with games that can only hand 8 to 16 or so players per game
Shitty 360 level graphics - a fucking Unreal Engine game would be the 'best looking' game, lol!
The first console to have a smaller storage format than a previous gen with only 7GB per disc vs 8.5 last gen
And of course the big one,
The massive number of Sony first party games that they all bought those 140 million PS2s and 105 million PS1s for
Phew, good thing Sony put those BluRay drives in the PS3...
You guys are really boring. ok, it's something new different, not quite the coolest thing you've ever seen, but since it's SONY I guess you're going to rip it apart no matter what it actually is.
>>Yet can't push out graphics that look any better than the 360.
I've played the same games on my TV with both a 360 and a PS3, and the PS3 is hands-down superior, though that's probably because the 360 I have access to (my buddy brings it over sometimes on weekends) isn't the Elite version, and thus doesn't have HDMI.
But the tears of unfathomable sadness are sweet and yummy!
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Stupid console fanboys, whether you own a PS3, Xbox or Wii you are all gay. Get a decent PC to find out what true gaming is all about, suckers. Or better still, get a life.
??? So then the updates I too had to download to put up with Home didn't exist? Reading his post it pretty much summed up my experience with it today. I just dont see the point of entering Home, finding my buddies, and then launching a game together when, without using Home, I could launch the game and invite people right away. Penny arcade really nailed it when they compared the arcade games to something you'd find on a flash site. Its like "this is sorta fun for 5mins, but why not do this from a web browser on my comp and save myself a lot of time."
I'm modding and this whole discussion on PS3/Home is totally pointless as there doesn't seem to be anyone who has got any objectivity about this.
Is Home worthwhile?
Is there a good chance it will improve over time?
Will it sell more PS3s?
What's lacking?
What's good about it?
Is there a point in Avatar style virtual worlds?
So I'm leaving this idiotic troll fest and modding elsewhere.
The largest unsharded MMORPG - EVE-Online, could have been a much better choice to implement a socializing system. Eve has been talking about having space stations where people can actually get out of their ships and walk around, do buisness. I would imagine a situation where "Home" is actually situated on populated planets and in addition to whatever BS sony fills home with currently there could be a system of opening businesses to trade with EVE pilots, and for those who actually have subscriptions to EVE to leave planets etc. Then it would be huge.
What were sales like for MGS4 again? I think if you added up half of the games you listed you'd make up Halo 3's sales.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21514
Sony is losing the game, they need to get back on track and stop fooling around with "no price cuts!" and Home.
And your comment about 1080i graphics is hilarious. The Xbox1 was able to do 1080i. The 360 runs rings around 1080p, unlike the PS3 with its limited graphics memory and non-unified limited shader units.
The PS3 is a tangled mess. They rushed it to market and are paying for it.
-]Phreak Out[-
Guess you missed NPD numbers for the month of November.
Wii - 2.04 million
DS - 1.57 million
Xbox 360 - 836, 000
PSP - 421,000
PS3 - 378,000
PS2 - 206, 000
Gimmick or not, the Wii is still selling overwhelmingly well. Cant argue that. And the attach rate for the Wii is slightly higher than the PS3's (5.5 to 5.3) Personally I have played my Wii a total of 31 hours in 1.5 years, but it still sells well, so its not nearly a failure
The PS3 isn't bad, but like the parent said, Sony expected to ride the PS2 wave, and didn't spend nearly enough time getting a decent launch catalog. This wouldn't have been a problem, but the 360 had a year head start, so it became a determining factor for the early months of the PS3. I was able to easily buy my PS3 2 days before Christmas a month after launch. The only game I bought was Resistance (22 launch titles, but barely any exclusives that I couldn't have already gotten for my 360)
The 360 itself had fewer launch titles than the PS3 at 18 (22 for PS3) but over the course of the year, had an extensive library. The attach rate for the 360 is 8.1, but that's also because of the year head start. Its strong showing last month could be attributed to the massive price cuts, but even then November is the start of holiday shopping and could be a bad sign for the PS3. It will be interesting to see the holiday sales difference between the 2 consoles.
Sadly Im a tech nerd that "needs" to have the latest gadgets, and has a job that can support my habit haha. I personally like all 3 consoles, but the Wii is more of a party console, the PS3's online service sucks and Home just made it worse and forced installs bug me, and the 360 always has me fearing the RROD. That said I spend much more time on my 360 than the other two, but that could change when Heavy Rain comes out (previews look awsome, guess we'll know more as it comes closure to launch). But sadly there just aren't that many more exclusives coming out for it. All of my co-workers have 360's and only a few ps3's so part of the reason my 360 gets more use, is due to playing online with them. So all multi-console game releases that I buy, I buy for the 360.
This is just my take on all 3 consoles, I own all 3 and play all 3 (although mostly just the PS3 and 360). Im sorry I dont like Home, and you will probably call me a fanboy of Nintendo/MS for saying that. But lets face it, Home is a pretty large letdown, and the loss of many exclusive series for the PS3 is also a large hit (Resident evil for example). So from one PS3 owner to another, lets not pretend the PS3 has already won the generation, and just admit Sony hasn't been perfect.
It's extraordinarily difficult to code games for a virtually infinite number of software and hardware configurations. That leads to all sorts of bugs and problems that usually aren't fixed on a PC game until after the first or second round of patches. With a console, I know that things are going to be pretty darn good out of the box, since there's only one configuration that programmers have to deal with.
In addition, I never have to worry about upgrading my system to ensure that I can play the latest game with all the graphics options turned on. Because every console edition is the same, I don't have to worry that I don't have the XX37 uber graphics card on my Xbox360. Sure, there's things like a hard drive to worry about, but that's a massively smaller problem than the infinite number of PC configurations out there.
In short, I like my console more for gaming because of its simplicity. By releasing Home, Sony has tried to make the console more complicated, more like a PC. And that's not what I want.
That a pretty bold statement given that the business model hasn't actually been tested yet.
Maybe not
There's no way that Sony would drop an efficient way for you to spend money, as such I'm sure the store will always be there.
Having online matchmaking move to Home only, seems very unlikely to me but not as much outside the realm of possibility...
I find spaces like this pretty annoying since all anyone wants to do there is giggle at sexual innuendo (or simply crude remarks). I'd be pretty put off too if I had to go there to do anything.
I am not sure it will really be ignored as much as I thought it would be, once the servers speed up a bit I can see a lot of people using it as a sort of casual chat room when bored, I think it has a few things going for it that other virtual environments failed to do well. It's not a space traditional gamers would find much of interest in, but perhaps the game specific places are better that way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The $200 arcade version you can go buy right now has HDMI. It's the first gen 360s that didn't have it.
I own all three consoles, I love Little Big Planet, I think Motorstorm 2 is the best arcade racer ever, and I was pretty hyped for Home. I got into the Home beta a few weeks ago, and I think it's the most useless and boring and pointless thing I've ever seen. I'm beginning to suspect that Sony has continued to delay this thing since PS2 times not because it was hard to implement, but because they were desperately trying to find a reason for it to exist. They still haven't found one, and neither have I.
I don't want to defend Second Life here, but the one redeeming factor it has is user-generated content. Home lacks that. It's like Second Life without the only thing that made Second Life marginally interesting.
* Metal Gear Solid 4 (ign score 10)
* Resistance (9.1)
* Resistance 2 (9.5)
* Motorstorm (8.9)
* Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (8.3)
* Ratchet & Clank, Tools of Destruction (9.4)
* Little Big Planet (9.5)
* Grand Turismo 5 Prologue (8.5)
* Siren: Blood Curse (8.4)
* Valkyria Chronicles (9.0)
Hardly any of the above are first-party. Exclusive, maybe, but not first-party.
"Hello" gets filtered because "Hell" is in it. "Something" does too, because "meth" is in it. This was annoying and unnecessary when you did it in Everquest Online Adventures, and it's annoying now.
If anything, make it an option the user can toggle.
most enormous graphical power advantage over its competitors ever in console history
Over ATI Xenon Both cards have their advantages, and neither is a clear winner. I dont own either console so I dont give a crap, but I dont see either card having any sort of significant advantage over the other.
Let's see Sony since the PS2 has:
* Co-developed the most powerful consumer electronic chip on the planet along with IBM and Toshiba
Yes. In fact, if you believed Sony's PR before the launch, the chip they developed is so powerful that it can send signals FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
No, seriously. They claimed that you could use others' PS3's extra power when they weren't using it to render frames in games. A quick back of the envelope calculation for that showed that yep, you could do that, if you could transfer the rendered frames at speeds in excess of 3x10^8m/s
Coming soon - pyrogyra
http://xkcd.com/471/
I kind of like Playstation Home. It's not a gee-wizz-bang feature, and I don't use it much. But when I do, I enjoy the experience. It's a pretty neat idea, and I'll be using it to look for people who can help me if I get stuck in a game. Oh, and look at game presentations, if they start using it for that.
It's interesting though to see that the people who "don't like it", actually hate it so much, and that they can spend a lot of time and energy complaining about it (most rants make their point at the first paragraph, and the following 10 paragraphs are just to reinforce how important the first paragraph is to them). One can not help wonder why it's such a big deal.
Right, it's not x86, it's Power PC. That leaves Windows out of the running (who cares?) but Linux/Unix can run it no problem, IBM sells Bladeservers that run it, there are several companies trying to get into the daughter card processor market with the Cell processor. In theory OSX Leopard/Tiger could be modified to run on the Cell processor, both OS's are x86/PowerPC agnostic.
Yes, but the problem is A) Most people won't use Linux/Unix and B) OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is rumored to be x86 only. Yes, servers will have the CPU, but for the average consumer, it won't benefit them save for the PS3.
* Metal Gear Solid 4 (ign score 10) * Resistance (9.1) * Resistance 2 (9.5) * Motorstorm (8.9) * Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (8.3) * Ratchet & Clank, Tools of Destruction (9.4) * Little Big Planet (9.5) * Grand Turismo 5 Prologue (8.5) * Siren: Blood Curse (8.4) * Valkyria Chronicles (9.0) That looks like a bit more then just 'nothing'... in fact, those look like some highly rated games... what does Microsoft have again? Halo 3 rated a good 9.5, and how many of the above are rated at or above a 9.5? And that's all you could name for the XBox?
I was talking about first-party titles. MGS4 is Konami, Resistance and Ratchet and Clank are made by Insomniac Games which after looking through the Wikipedia article I found no reason to believe they were owned by Sony.
The 360 and PS3 have a fair share of exclusive games, however most of them are not first-party like Nintendo's games.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Aside from ports, the first-party "check this out!" games are what I compare between the two. Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank? Looks awesome with true 720p output and true 1080i output too.
What about the 360? Well Halo 3 looks nice, at 640p upscaled. What's that say?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It tells you that gamers have a significant investment in their gaming system beyond the hardware. They own a number of games and peripherals and have a number of friends online. It says nothing specific about the quality of the 360 experience, but says a lot about the barriers to switching systems in general.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
So if all the comparisons that favor the 360 are faked and rigged, do you have any non-rigged comparisons that show the PS3 games are superior? If not, why not? I'd expect at the very least someone would fake/rig a few pointing the other way.
Wait, Resident Evil was a loss of an exclusive series for the PS3? The previous game in the main series was initially exclusive to the Gamecube but got ports to the PS2, PC and later the Wii too. Was RE5 ever announced as an exclusive? I seem to recall it being PS3/360 pretty much from the start.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
FYI, Xbox360 runs windows, a stripped down version but it's still windows.
Windows NT originally ran on both PowerPC and Alpha CPUs as well.
Anyway, keep the flame alive.
As opposed to shiny new graphics, which is never a passing fancy, and always adds immeasurably to gameplay.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I actually find the Xenon seems to be the better pick, if only for the unified shader architecture. There are a few 360/PS3 games where some of the shader detail was weaker on the PS3 and my guess is because the shader units are bottlenecked. With unified shaders, you'd always be able to use all your shaders all the time.
-]Phreak Out[-
Actually, I'm a Wii fanboy. My wife wanted something that could play Puzzle Fighter, and the Wii release schedule has been pretty thin for several months.
If the graphics of the PS3 are so superior to the 360 then why do almost all reviews for cross platform games mention that the PS3 version is inferior in graphics and/or framerate? Or are Gamespot "fanbois"? GS suck for many reasons but I don't think platform bias is something they can be accused of.
I can't be bothered to do a step by step through all your utterly ridiculous comments (that has been done very nicely below here anyway) I will just finish by saying you are either a colossal tool, paid by sony, or one of the best trolls that has ever graced these boards.
The only thing you are right about is that Halo 3 is a joke of a game.
I echo the above post. I' be owned all three, with an attach rate of no less than at least 15 titles each platform . I wish I had gow2, but I still have no regrets about trading the 360 in for the ps3. A) as above, it's one of the most advanced pieces of engineering a consumer can currently own and b) to justify a) we ain't seen nothing yet. If the ps3 stays afloat (sometimes I'm doubtful it will) it will start to piss over the competition in the next 18 months... If not? Intellivision vs atari? Dreamcast vs ps2? The technologically superior console is never the winner. But in the case of the ps3 it's damn nice to have one
XBox Live has nothing to do with whether a game uses P2P or dedicated servers. Left 4 Dead, for example, uses dedicated servers on XBox. Developers tend to use P2P because its cheaper than dedicated servers and, contrary to popular belief, is usually pretty good.
Why wouldn't you just get a 360 then? I mean, both companies are douchebags so the "Microsoft sucks" meme really doesn't apply. Unless you wanted a BD player.
They claimed that you could use others' PS3's extra power when they weren't using it to render frames in games.
It's still possible. I think you misunderstood though because that doesn't make sense for games. Maybe in a HPC environment, which Cell is also intended for, work could be sent to non-local SPUs. Obviously the latency between two game consoles on the internet is too high for offloading any game logic unless you're into some really funky math games.
I've been a Gran Turismo and Metal Gear fan for the best part of a decade, I bought my PS3 when GT5p came out. I like driving games and while Forza seems pretty decent (and is way more complete than GT5p), the Xbox wheel is garbage. The 360 is pretty cheap now and there are rumours of a price cut, which would make it absurdly cheap, so I may get one eventually.
Sony are douchebags, but I've never been forced to buy Sony kit due to their illegal abuse of market dominance. For a long time I had no choice but to run Windows if I wanted to work. I've found it pretty trivial to avoid Sony's attempts at lock-in, but until fairly recently found it impossible to avoid Microsoft's.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The language filter is quite primitive. Words like "hello" and "something" become "****o" and "so****ing".
It's still possible. I think you misunderstood though because that doesn't make sense for games. Maybe in a HPC environment, which Cell is also intended for, work could be sent to non-local SPUs. Obviously the latency between two game consoles on the internet is too high for offloading any game logic unless you're into some really funky math games.
No, I understand grid/clustered computing alright. But they were explicitly talking about using it for games.
Other claims that didn't materialize: "Speaking of video, Sony Computer Entertainment's chief technical officer Masa Chatani was on hand to show off the PS3's panoramic video functions. Since the console has two HD outputs, it is can be hooked up to two side-by-side HDTVs to projecting video in a 32:9 extra-widescreen format (think Cinemascope in your living room). Like a gigantic version of the Nintendo DS, the dual digital outputs also allow for an extended game display, with the action on one screen and either game information or video chat on the second."
Coming soon - pyrogyra
We get it already. :rolls eyes:
Punch drunk, and without bail.
Did someone take the pathetic little shit out back behind the Slashdot shed and put him out of his misery?
The PvP Slashdot shed on PS3 Home is under beta testing. We'll get back to you.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I've played the same games on my TV with both a 360 and a PS3, and the PS3 is hands-down superior, though that's probably because the 360 I have access to (my buddy brings it over sometimes on weekends) isn't the Elite version, and thus doesn't have HDMI.
Component vs. HDMI shouldn't make a big difference unless you're talking 1080p, and if both consoles are pumping the native resolution to your display (720p if he has a 720p display, and 1080i if he has a 1080i display) you should be able to get a fairly accurate representation.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Of course no one from Apple will admit any of this now since the official line is they 'decided' to move to x86. Just like someone telling everyone about a former girl/boyfriend "They didn't dump me, I dumped them" to try to save face.
IBM and Motorola couldn't make a laptop version of the G5. That's the only reason Apple went to x86. IBM and Motorola should be ashamed they couldn't do it.
Who cares about 'egos,' that's simply a market reality.
For TV maybe, but for games with a lot of straight edges, the difference is noticeable. At least it was when I switched my PS3 back and forth between component and HDMI to test it out.
Component was a lot better than the other analog options, but still not as good as HDMI.
That most exclusive AAA games on the PS3 look better than a given exclusive AAA game on the 360, while cross-platform games which are generally written to the lowest common denominator look equally good on both consoles because the 360 can only do "so much" and the developers:
1) don't want to spend extra time customizing for the PS3
2) don't want to listen to the 360 customers complaining they "didn't take the time to finish the game" if the PS3 version looks better ... even if the developers couldn't have made it look any better.
Did you have the component set to 720p or 1080i? A lot of times, the PS3 will set it back to 480i if you don't specify. Anyway, the most important thing is matching the native display of the device, and if it's a digital display (LCD, DLP) HDMI will almost always be better. This won't necessarily be the case for CRT or plasma TV. Proper calibration is essential...and remember, don't get covered with scorpions!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
My LCD TV handles 1080p over component inputs, so it was running at whatever the highest output the PS3 was running on that setting. While it still looked not bad (especially when playing non-blu ray DVDs - the difference was insignificant), when running games like Tekken with long straight lines, with HDMI, the lines precisely followed the pixels on the LCD TV, but on component they bleeded a bit, and looked a lot less precise.