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Sony talks about Home
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 13th March 2007
Welcome home - The new service will be exclusive to PS3, but only for a while.
First things first, the new Home service will only be available on PS3 machines for a while. This exclusivity is far from permanent, however - plans are already in the works for a PSP version and even a mobile-phone port. Of course, these will have limited functionality compared to the PS3, but you will still have the power to take your avatar with you on the go.
Sony also discussed a little more of what you can do with that avatar, but not much. One question asked was, "Can you use Home to launch a Blu-ray movie? What about watching it?" The answer was "Launch, yes; watch, no." As Ars Technica points out, this makes sense, really - do you really want to watch your avatar watch a movie? Yeah, we didn't think so, either.
There are some technical hurtles to jump before the service is ready for the big-time. For instance, Sony wants to put in a market place for real-world goods, much like the XBox Live was promised to get. Of course, this leads into legal issues galore, so it's probably best they work on software issues first. For instance, the concept of persistance hasn't quite been hammered out yet - when you disappear, so does all your stuff until you log back on. Nobody will even know you're there - a rather unreal part of a virtual reality world.
Of course, the thing you are most interested in - release dates. The service will go through two betas before its undetermined release. A closed beta (for about 15,000 users) will start in April and run through August. Then an open beta (50,000 users) will run from August through October. Over this time, we'll hopefully see many of the kinks worked out.
Do you have a thought on Home in general? How about getting a beta? Let us know your thoughts in our forums.
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Comments (13)Stats: 0.124 seconds
By the time Sony pulls the PS3 together, MS will be releasing their Xbox 3.
That's the thing.
They seem to be getting a lot of praise for Home, yet it's something that should have been available from day one.
It's really, really obvious that Microsoft releasing the Xbox 360 a year early surprised Sony.
The PS2 would have still had another 2 or 3 strong years left (look at God of War 2); but Sony's hand was forced to release a console that was in no way ready...
I was wondering if they even had that many :P
If you want something like that with more depth, hell just get world of warcraft.
Also did i see it say you can share and view videos together? Movies?
Surely that will create a storm about piracy and public broadcasting of movies/videos/music?..unless i missed something?
Im looking forward to the Wii games, i dont even own one yet but i know its going to be allot of fun to play sports games with buddys in the living room...maybe even beat-em-ups!
it does seem like too little too late for sony though, and its dissapointing it will take them almost a year to get this out the doors
I'd love to see MS release XB3 next month! I'd love to see a rushed POS to let MS screw every single buyer again. Don't forget, if you release consoles every month you might have the latest and greatest system but you sure don't have a very big fan base if they have to shell out $$$ every 30 days.
Also, don't forget the 360 actually has very little in common with a PC- it's CPU sure isn't the same as what is in your PC or mine.
L J
Even so if Sony feel compelled to build each console from ground up and xbox start with existing systems (x86, powerpc) then xbox will allways have the upperhand when releasing new consoles.
the ONLY reason PS3 has been delayed and cost sony so much is their insistence on using absolutely bleeding edge tech - the Cell and Blue Ray. Cell had major yield problems and huge RnD costs, and blue ray screwed everyone over because nobody could make the blue lasers.
Home is most definitely an afterthought, but for the time being it seems like a well designed one.