Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview focusing on the Xbox 360’s five year anniversary, Neil Thompson, general manager for UK and Ireland, and Stephen McGill, UK marketing manager, have mentioned that the company has “no plans” to “do a PlayStation Home,” going so far as to referring to Sony’s social experiment as “a nice chat room I guess, not an awful lot more.”
Thompson and McGill go on to state how they don’t see any peripherals for Kinect in the future (rubber boat fans, we’re sorry), that they’re “very happy” with the attach rate of software to the new hardware device, and fully believe it’s possible to introduce a new IP at this late stage of a console’s life-cycle. We recommend checking out the full interview. It’s a great read.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
nofi
To be fair, considering what Sony promised, he’s not far off.
Home is, first and foremost, a chat room though, by design.
Tuffcub
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/12/02/home-gets-a-zero-g-shooter/
bigdon23
I like home, but i do agree with the guy, which is why i dont understand people spending so much money in home
cc_star
Even that disparraging comment is higher praise than I’d give it, although I will say I’m aware it has a group of fans and it’s great that Sony caters for them
TafKas
As much as I love my PS3 I would also agree, I tried it when it launched and have only been in once since to try one of the games they launched. Can it be uninstalled, or is it now embedded in firmware?
Kovacs
You can delete the data from your HDD if you need space. It’s embedded in the XMB, however.
DrNate86
I’d agree with this, PS Home is pretty functionless. It has a few good games, but none that compare to actually playing something on the PS3. The only thing I used to go back regularly for was Xi. They should at least integrate the avatar onto the PS3 XMB like the 360 does.
aphex187
Good old MS slagging Sony off as usual, oh don’t mention your Game Room or that Camera game In the Movies now will you that have totally bombed! Lol if MS made something like Home i bet you they would make you pay for those free games even if they aren’t great.
DuffyBox
Whoa, I’d hardly call it slagging. They’re just calling it like they see it. I think Sony really dropped the ball on this one, home could have been so much more,
Juelz345
But no complaints when Sony takes blatant jabs at MS and Kinect right? And why on earth would you compare Home to In the Movies? You do realize that they are two totally and completely different things all together right? That would be live comparing LIVE to Pain.
And if MS did do something like Home they would charge you, but it would also work and offer some soft of entertainment value.
UKZ-N3M1515
nah. home had potential, when i saw all the trailers before i even had a PS3, i had ‘The Sims’ in mind, make and decorate a house, and if you have a movie on your HDD, 2 friends sit in your customly built and decorated house and watch it while chatting over headset. How it has failed, its ‘play chess with a stranger who will leave if your winning’. If MS did it, yes effectivly it would be pay to play, but no doubt it would be part of the Gold package, plus, i bet MS would do it properly. This came from a PS3 owner, so its not that i just love the 360.
Zephyre
Glorified chat room it may be, but it’s still got bags of unfulfulled potential. Some of the game specific areas are a joy to behold (the star Wars cantina for example), they just need to give users a good reason for actually using it. Free home avatar things with ltd edt games would be a good start, and pushing game launching from Home (has anyone ever used that?) would also help. Crap, never thought I’d find myself actually defending Home :P
Foxhound_Solid
Home has serious potential, it feels like Sony havent even scrathced the surface as yet. I must say its fun meeting my bros and mates in Home to play pool or go bowling…
Its more then a glorified chat room, but it has yet to be used and pushed in the way it should be…
MS hahaha, typical style comment, passive aggressive…
TSBonyman
Home is a chat room? I knew there was something else i was meant to be doing instead of playing games, exploring the Home spaces and stacking furniture in my apartment :)
Paranoimia
I’m not a regular user of it, but Home can certainly be entertaining enough for occasional visits, and it’s improving all the time.
Couldn’t give a flying f*ck what Microsoft’s opinion of it is, but of course they won’t “do a Home” for the 360 because they can’t – at least not without splitting their userbase even further, as there’s still a lot of 360s out there, old and new, without the capacity to store it. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we could say similar about Kinect – “it’s a nice webcam, I guess, not an awful lot more.”
As for PS3 owners hating on it, I really don’t understand them either. You’d think Sony were forcing you to download it and buy stuff from it. It’s entirely optional, so if you don’t want it, don’t install it. If you tried it and don’t like it, just delete it. It really makes no difference to you whatsoever, other than having one icon on your XMB, so the endless whining is even more ‘pointless’ than Home itself.
I don’t see any need for 3DTV or 3D games, but I don’t post on forums bitching about it every time it’s mentioned – I just won’t buy one. Those that want it, fine… no skin of my nose.
As a service, Home does what it was designed to do, and much more. It’s not distracting Sony from other “more wanted” features, because it’s developed by completely different teams – so even if Home didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be getting cross-game chat any quicker.
aphex187
I agree and what’s more annoying is that you don’t see anyone whining about MS and their failures.
Home is great for what it is, a social experience and that for some is quite hard to take in.
Foxhound_Solid
**Standing Ovation**
bunimomike
PS3 owners “hating on it” (which I am one of) could see the incredible potential that Home had (whilst in the early stages of development).
Sony, historically, have some lovely ideas with hardware and software but so many times they seem to fail miserably with seeing things through properly. They seem ill-equipped to support such systems (from the badly supported PS Store in many regions) to the likes of Home.
I’m no fanboy for any console but my heart lies with Sony (still). That doesn’t stop us pointing out where they have failed miserably. If people don’t, they won’t learn.
There’s already been mention of it being a glorified chat room but it requires quite a bit of loading and caching and effort (compared to just popping open a chat screen). However, what I’d love to see is Sony open it up to the community so people like Colinbarr or teflon (splendid members at TSA) can upload the F1 league tables and race updates in a special place for all the F1 fans/drivers to go visit. A community trophy cabinet. Something permanent that keeps the community coming back again and again.
If I gave it some real thought, I could come up with some genuinely decent ideas. Hell, many of us have already but Sony appear to be reticent to act on such things.
In absolute terms, it’s a bit of fun to many people. In relative terms (when compared to what it could have been) it has failed at almost every level. This isn’t emotion talking. Just cold hard fact and it’s gutting as I wanted it to be nothing short of incredible and something Sony could rightly show off and feel smug about.
aphex187
Think that’s why it’s put many people off with constant downloading of areas and even peoples avatars or whatever you want to call them staying transparent for way too long.
Juelz345
WOW, you sound angry.
And for the record, your bitching about people bitching is just as pointless the bitching your bitching about.
gazzagb
Well said.
david
Glorified chat room it may be but its making Sony lots of money. If this was on Live youd have to pay for it.
God I hate the crap MS spouts out.
bunimomike
Do you have any figures? I’d love to see what it makes them (turnover, profit, etc).
Juelz345
Ah, nothing like like unbiased and rational conversation to brighten the day.