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PlayStation Home: First Term Report
On Wednesday at the Develop conference in Brighton, Peter Edward, director of the PlayStation Home platform group, gave an update on the progress of Sony’s seven month old online service.
Home now has seven million users, three million of which are based in Europe. 80 per cent of its users are aged 18-35, suggesting a broadening of the console’s user base, according to Edward.
European users spend an average of 56 minutes in Home per session, which is getting media agencies “very excited” about the service. “Reaching this number of PS3 users via other media would be incredibly costly,” said Edward, who referred to Home users as “the most active PS3 users and therefore the most important to reach.” Home also gives Sony a new way of accessing community feedback, he said, allowing the platform holder to react more quickly to user requests.
European users have downloaded six million free and paid virtual items. As Sony said previously, Home generated $1 million in micro-transactions during its first month, although that’s the only revenue information revealed to date. “This is a commercial business, it’s up and running and it’s making money,” Edward offered, although he said that this isn’t currently Sony’s primary concern.
Something not covered in Edward’s first term report was the fact that the European version of Home has fallen behind what is offered in other territories in terms of features like game spaces, as acknowledged by Home’s community manager in a frank online post in May. We asked Edward why this was the case.
“I think localisation is a big part of that. The expectation that spaces will be localised into at least the EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German and Spanish) languages leads to delays,” he said. “There are other issues that you’re no doubt aware of if you’ve read the post, [ones] more specifically related to the European business itself which I can’t really comment on, but I think technically the big issue’s localisation, and I think that’s something that’s always been an issue with the European market. Since year dot there’s always been the issue of Europe getting things later than everybody else, and normally speaking that comes down to localisation. Home is no different in that respect which is why it’s so important to get that stuff incorporated from the very beginning.”
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Home got uninstalled pronto.
Todays PSN update in the EU was a mind blowing number also.............
i really dont understand how ppl can bitch about HOME its an extra FREE service with multiple FREE minigames and a shitload more in the pipeline, it allows you to meet ppl and chat with them and it connects and adds on to your games not only does it do all that but it does it pretty well and again its completely free of charge. Alot of the fanboys come in here and say its garbage yet it blows the NXE away in all catagories, that my friends IS garbage the NXE is nothing more than a moving wallpaper with ads that you pay for to look at. Im not saying HOME is perfect but in the 7 months its been out its expanded tremedously and is at least 6times bigger and keeps growing weekly and best of all its free you can go in look around play some games and leave no strings attached how can you reall bitch.
PSN and NXE are comparable but HOME is its own thing. Comparing HOME to NXE is silly. Those two are completely different. Almost as silly as claiming that people shouldn't talk about a product negatively because its free. That may be even more silly. Plus its not just fanboys who don't like it.
Several of us just on this site like our PS3 but think HOME is hot crap. You like it. Cool. But don't poo-poo on those who don't. You don't see us complaining because you enjoy HOME.
There should be someway on these boards to detemine who actually owns what console. I have no problem with someone bashing Sony or Microsoft if they own the systems. Everyone who bashes a company is now a fanboy. How stupid is that? That's not to say there aren't fanboys, as we know there are plenty.
I have a 60GB PS3 from launch. Let me be clear as I possibly can......HOME is crap.
I'm sure there are number of people who like it but its down right a waste of my time as a gamer. Most of my friends don't waste their time with this thing because after about 56 minutes, there is nothing left to do except trying to meet weirdos dancing. Bowling is the only thing worthwile for about half of that 56 minutes and that's always crowded. Good luck Europe. Maybe this is more up your alley.
Good suggestion, zarbor. Some gaming sites give you the option to include your gamertag/PSN/Steam ID, etc. which helps confirm if someone actually has and plays the system.
Granted it's a lot easier to do so with Live with it's excellent API support, but even with PSN you can verify if the person has played on the system by going to the official website of a handful of supported online games (like Resistance and Killzone).
I also have a 60GB PS3 (since 12/31/06) and HOME is the biggest waste of resources I've seen spent in this industry in a long time. The fact that Sony has to make such an effort to try to convince everyone it's not a failure demonstrates the fact it actually is. I feel sorry for the corporate execs who have been suckered in by Sony's spin machine (or strong armed) and are committing dwindling resources to put spaces up on HOME.
Third PS3 diehard here testifying that Home is a waste of time. Deleted it a couple weeks ago to install Fracture (which is also a waste of time, now that I think about it). I still laugh every time something reminds me that to play a game in Home you have to be one of the only eight people in the world doing it, and everyone else who wants to play it ("anyone else" more like) has to just stand there. In Home.
Believe it or not, two people can use Google at once!
Please no one respond to whisky's pointless comment below, we'll just be enabling him. Ignore and move on.
Good call, pointless. I can't speak for everyone, but I am a fanboy, a fanboy of Video Games, period.
Though it boggles my mind that people will actually "defend" home, but I guess it's just the endless idiotic cycle/call and response. What it comes down to it for me is if Sony invested the resources they used to create Home into improving their baseline Online Service, I think the service, feature-wise would definitely be at par with XBL.
Nick, jb1, Kim_Naroz, OmegaVader, Peter_Pesic and Nolim should all get back to:
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/
This place is getting worse with these idiots on the boards.
"said Edward, who referred to Home users as 'the most active PS3 users and therefore the most important to reach.'"
What? No! I play games (real games!) on my PS3 like a full-time job. Reach me! Reach me!
Home is garbage.
You know whats garbage? The pointless ad ridden NXE with the stupid fem avatars.
Do you ever have anything positive to say about Sony or any other company apart from MS? You're like this wee 15 yr old fanboy brat! Take your comments to Eurogamer or Gametrailers forums!
Swap M$ and Sony and you've just described yourself, do you really not see the irony in that post?
Nolim, you've got a cheek to call anyone a fanboy! Takes one to know one!
With regard to all the fanboy accusations i think we all should let our posts speak for themselves, it's not like most of us aren't on here regularly enough to make up our own minds.
Perhaps we should be discussing the nature of fanboyism itself as it's a very odd phenomenon, lets face it, none of the consoles of this generation are without merit, we've all enjoyed some classics and excellent exclusives whatever console you own, so why the need to take issue with any of them?
Well done guys. You've succesfully simulated gamespot for us all.
Lets be honest, fanboyism is as rife here on the Edge forum as anywhere else, it would be nice if we all agreed not to pointlessly slag off innovations from our favored manufacturers competition, making Edge a haven for reasoned debate and erasing fanboy drudgery forever, but somehow i don't see that happening.
You're talking about the destruction of the internet. Where else will idiots argue?
Well said Nolim. I don't see it happening either, but I have to admit it seems to have gotten better though.
Home is garbage.
It's true. Most PS3 fanboys I know think it's pointless.
I had a go on my mates PS3, I just didn't "get" it. Lots of adverts for Transformers movie though, which annoyed me as the film (in my opinion!) is garbage. But knowing Sony it'll be a slow burner and will probably be pretty good one day.
56 minutes? I can spend about 56 seconds in there. It just seems like a glorified chatroom to me.
At this point it really is. There are some interesting spaces like the Uncharted space and you can play some mini-games at the bowling alley/pool hall but it's really lacking game-launching support and until it gets that I can't find much reason to use it. You can chat with other people but you have to launch your games separately and send invites. Might as well just use gamefaqs.
With the home apartment spaces and other interactive areas it has lots of promise but I think right now Home just really lacks direction.
Personally I don't use it unless I hear of something cool in it (which isn't too often). but I guess those who like it like it, good on 'em. If Sony can spin some money out of this and start putting some of it towards more games good, even better.