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PlayStation Home now has 10 million registered users, SCEE said this morning.
The milestone hits as the firm opens new spaces for Uncharted 2 and Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time in the online “world”.
“PlayStation Home is fast becoming the meeting place of choice between users and developers,” said Dan Hill, European Home Business Manager at SCEE.
“Every new game space enhances the overall experience for consumers, offering more variety, more choice and more enjoyment from a PlayStation Home session.
PR through the link.
PlayStation®Home: where users and developers meet
As three new, interactive game spaces open in PlayStation®Home, its status as the meeting place of choice for users and developers becomes ever more apparent
More than 10 million Home users is the evidence of the success.
London, 18th December: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has opened the doors to two stunning new spaces in PlayStation®Home for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves™ and Ratchet and Clank™ A Crack in Time, with a MotorStorm™ space set to arrive soon. Each space has its own distinct feel offering an interactive area where all of the 10 million users can get a taste for the title, hang out with other fans, enjoy fascinating mini-games and watch the latest game footage.
For developers, it’s a chance to showcase their products and creativity to their core audience; the MotorStorm space, for example, is decked-out as a garage-come-industrial warehouse, complete with DJ area, dancefloors and chill-out zones, while offering new merchandise and quest rewards. Game spaces become hubs of interaction between gamers and developers – a meeting place to share experiences, fun and information that benefits the gaming community as a whole.
“PlayStation Home is fast becoming the meeting place of choice between users and developers,” said Dan Hill, European Home Business Manager at SCEE. “Every new game space enhances the overall experience for consumers, offering more variety, more choice and more enjoyment from a PlayStation Home session. The more game spaces there are, the better it gets, and the number of spaces keeps on growing. For developers, there’s no better way of driving interest in their titles than giving fans a hands-on, interactive experience based around the game itself. A game space in PlayStation Home ought to be a core element of every studio’s marketing strategy for new titles.”
The new spaces join a growing club of titles with their own PlayStation Home areas, each of them very different. The Resistance 2™ space is a destroyed Chicago railway station, while SingStar® has a virtual nightclub called the SingStar Rooms, which hosted a question-answer session with Dizzee Rascal earlier this year, with Dizzee appearing in avatar form to meet and greet his fans. It’s not just games companies that are involved with PlayStation Home either: fashion leader Diesel, energy drink makers Red Bull and furniture-makers Ligne Roset are all on board.
European Product Marketing Director Mark Hardy explains: “As we continue to develop integrated marketing campaigns, we are increasingly driven by the flexibility and level of engagement offered by our online channels. From PlayStation Blog to the SingStar community to the enormous creative potential of PlayStation Home, we are now having a proper, two way dialogue with our customers and at the same time giving them the opportunity to sample and shape the way we create our products.”
It’s all happening in PlayStation Home, the ever-expanding, open-ended online realm for PlayStation®3 users where the possibilities are endless. Find out more at www.eu.playstation.com.
ENDS
Viewing 40 responses
Redh3lix said:
Wow, that’s weird, I fired it up last night. Been a looong time since I have. There’s tons of new stuff in there. There’s also a decent (free) shooter you can download called “Sodium”!
There’s still loads of functionality blocked from using such as “Appliances” and “photo frames” though.
Psychotext said:
I’d love to know the number of active users.
sg1974 said:
Home is shit
Jadeskye said:
it always makes me giggle to see home stories pop up every few months. i can’t believe it still exists.
Quiiick said:
The constant bashing of Home is so immature.
Home is a great place to meet people from all over the world and have a chat.
Redh3lix said:
The Home bashing is because people think it’s a “game” Quick m8.
Robo_1 said:
I’ve never understood the Home bashing. A free online community, which is becomingly increasingly packed with fun mini games and events – oh yeah, lets get the pitch forks out.
Oh well, haters gonna hate.
zoopdeloop said:
the Home bashing is cause Live doesn’t have anything like it….yet
Blerk said:
I imagine the Home bashing is actually because Sony have sunk a fuck-ton of money into something which isn’t actually very useful (unless you want to chat to random foreigners). Money they could’ve put into improving PSN instead.
OlderGamer said:
Wow, really? Some of you folks think people not liking home are immature? I always have found that the overwhelming majority of home users are the immature ones. For awhile it was funny to watch the teenage males hone in of any female avatar like a heatseaking missle. Then said female gets bombarded with constant hounding about cybersex. This happens all of the time. Very immature in my book. It makes Home very unusable to any real female, lest she have far more patients then the real women that I have talked to about it. Be it my wife, my sisterinlaw, my friends wife, or the girl that works at Gamestop. They hate home. Think about it from their perspective. They have to wade through a bunch of crap. And in the end, there isn’t much to do on home.
I have never thought of home as a game, btw. Home is basicly an advertising zone. An interactive commercial. I really enjoyed the bowling game, and a couple of the other offerings I thought were neat worthy. But again not worth putting up with the foul mouthed teens that plague the space.
If Home were instanced per the user, with optional abilities to join open “community” areas…then I would use it more. But no way I am going to interact with a bunch of kids on that level.
zoopdeloop said:
Get real Blerk…They didn’t spend much on it instead they are making money out of Home thus they can improve the PSN.But still not enough.That’s why they are making subscriptions for premium priviledges.Which is fine if it means a PSN that could be on par with Live.
The whole bashing comes clearly from the other side
Blerk said:
“They didn’t spend much on it”? They’ve sunk a small fortune into Home development.
Quiiick said:
@ OlderGamer
Just curious: Are you logging on to Home with a US PSN-account?
European HOME users seem to be less foul mouthed. Sure there were/are a few, especially during the first few weeks after launch.
But to be honest, I regularly meet a lot of very polite and interesting folks in HOME.
Whizzo said:
Second Life is shit.
A knock off Second Life with less features is even more shit.
zoopdeloop said:
Nothing compared to the budget they used on one single game as “Killzone 2″ or “Uncharted 2″
Quiiick said:
@ Blerk
Can you provide any hard numbers concerning development costs versus income via clothes, advertising and what not ?
OlderGamer said:
I agree with Blerk. And then they, as you would expect, went about promoting it heavily. I really can’t understand how they can conivince companies to support it. I would want very indepth demographic breakdowns. I would be concerned about buying power of said demographics, and I would want to know exactly how much investment in home impacts said companies sales of PS3 games. I guess those numbers must be out there, somewhere. Because people keep spending on it. But if SONY placed a “Blade” or a window, or a selectable spot on the PSN front interface for companies to stream game advertisments, game footage, and promotions…think something like “Inside Xbox”, I would think that would be much more cost effective and would reach more users that actualy support the platform.
sg1974 said:
Why would Live have anything like Home? It doesn’t need it it has cross game chat and decent games.
Robo_1 said:
“I imagine the Home bashing is actually because Sony have sunk a fuck-ton of money into something which isn’t actually very useful (unless you want to chat to random foreigners). Money they could’ve put into improving PSN instead.”
What possible evidence do you have that the money they sunk into Home has adversely effected the PSN? The PSN receives regular firmware updates, and adding features like cross game chat isn’t going to be down to throwing cash at the problem, but more to do with figuring out how the hell to reverse engineer such a feature into games which were never designed to work with such a system.
It’s doubly amusing that many of Home’s most vocal detractors don’t even own a PS3, and as has been said, Home does make Sony money.
One of Sony’s strengths has always been their ability to create a broad range of services and games, which appeal to a wide cross section of audiences. Home clearly isn’t geared towards the traditional console gamer who waits inline for the next Call of Duty, it’s been designed to broaden the consoles appeal to the people who sink hours into Second Life and the 2 million plus folk who have signed up for Free Realms.
Nobody is asking everyone to like Home – I’m hardly it’s biggest fan myself – but the same tired criticisms of the service are beginning to grate, when most of the people who slag it off don’t even use it, and so continually underestimate just how much stuff there is to do on there.
OlderGamer said:
And yes, I am an American. Sad but true. I have also found that gaming with Euros, tends to be a better experience, save for the lag and the occasional language barriers. But when you live in America, you game in America. Mostly.
Oh and Robo, for the record, my friend, I own and game on my PS3. I use my xb360 a tad more, I even use my Wii a bit too. Right now Im on a bit of a WoW stint. I know, I know, how far I have fallen. I just can’t help myself when friends ask me to come back.
zoopdeloop said:
@18
For Live and cross chat i can agree with that…Decent games?are you implying that PS3 doesn’t have these?because you’re just fooling yourself
Psychotext said:
“when most of the people who slag it off don’t even use it”
I’m assuming that you mean “when most of the people who slag it off don’t have a PS3″… because you’re unlikely to use it if you dislike it enough to slag it off.
As for me, I think Home is a waste of time… but I’m not going to give anyone grief for liking it. (losers!)
zoopdeloop said:
I believe that whoever is confident of his console purchase(and not types like aww i’ll buy it just for a title or two but the system sucks)doesn’t really have any issues with Home.
I’m not into this stuff…i log in Home once in a blue moon.I don’t care really,i’m not bashing it…but i think that it’s a nice community for others who are interested in this…not for me
Robo_1 said:
“I’m assuming that you mean “when most of the people who slag it off don’t have a PS3″… because you’re unlikely to use it if you dislike it enough to slag it off.”
Partly. The thing with Home, is that it’s an evolving service. The entertainment value of Home is ten fold that of when it launched, yet some people continue to speak of it as this barren place with nothing to do, but that’s a totally inaccurate assessment of the Home which exists today.
NiceFellow said:
@blerk I doubt they ever had more than a small team on this until more recently.
Home is not for me at all – never use it – but its clearly going to find an audience with some, and I suspect it easily pays for itself with the microtransactions (something I hate myself but there you go).
I do agree though that initially Home was given some serious hype and push from Sony, and that is where I personally believe the backlash sprang from.
Because when it launched the reality was a small, mainly empty space to begin with developed by a small team which has slowly grown on the back of increasing advertising/microtransactions – and I think it was the miss-match of hype to actual experimental reality that caused the friction.
With that said it’s almost sounding interesting now and at this rate I may actually log in for the first time since launch just to see what it’s like now.
Redh3lix said:
It’s an application where you can go play games (chess, pool, bowling etc) amongst many other things absolutely free. You dont HAVE to talk to anybody. What’s not to like about it?? lol
Yeah there are fuckwits in it, but no more than there are irritating wankers in Modern Warfare 2 on coms.
Regarding money, third partys pay Sony to develop and publish “spaces” within the Home environment for monetary gain or simply advertising.
It’s going to get bigger and better. I rekon once it’s open to media sharing etc, it’ll get much more popular.
Retroid said:
People who slag off Home don’t use it?
Jesus Christ.
Or: like me, they liked the idea of having their own space to invite people into and have lots of gaming-themed virtual tat around the place, have pictures on the walls, sit and watch videos (as they said would be possible), play minigames…. all of that.
Instead, you have to pay a few quid for picture frames (long delated, too), you can’t share videos, gaming tat is very limited (but thankyou Namco for your freevie virtual arcade cabs! Pity it won’t let me play them), voice chat is restricted, there’s no way to only play with people on your friends list and minigames have to be queued up for.
FFS.
Robo_1 said:
Hey nobody is saying it’s perfect, but at least the items you’ve listed are legitimate grievances with the service, with clear suggestions with what should be improved.
No problem with that, in fact the post you’ve just made should be directed at Home’s development staff, as much of the stuff you’ve posted about does need to be addressed.
Although it’s hard to blame them for charging for everything from picture frames through to gaming costumes, given that micro transactions are probably the services main form of investment.
ARFarokhi said:
Whatever HOME is, is better than XBL! At least the avatrs from PSN are way better than the XBL ones! They’re more realistic!
What can u do with your XBL avatar?! Just move RS and enjoy playing with your cartoony avatar!
Blerk said:
Well, games can import and use your avatar now. So there is that. Not that I’d particularly want to do that, but there you go.
Incidentally, I wasn’t having a pop at Home myself earlier on – I was just pointing out what the general argument about home tends to be whenever this argument crops up. Personally I have no interest in Home whatsoever, but if someone else thinks it’s the best thing since sliced head then who am I to argue?
NoxNoctisUmbra said:
Why the fuck bash at HOME if it is free? If yo do not like it, leve it alone, but if you pay money for it, you dont like it , then bash at it..
I am sure 90% of bashing comes from xbox live members
Retroid said:
Yes, it’s a big conspiracy.
We all hate Sony. We’re such meanies.
/Steals Sony’s lunch money
bugmenot said:
as has been said most people think home is a game rather than a glorified chat-room full of beautifully rendered talking points and ice-breakers(posters,vids,games etc). I think its an amazing achievement nonetheless and most forget still in beta. This will be standard on all next gen consoles to those hating on it.
Syrok said:
As long as it never replaces the menu and I’m not forced to load up some virtual world just to play a game or watch a movie they can do whatever they want.
DeSpiritusBellum said:
I’m gonna go with bugmenot. As long as it isn’t mandatory, then no matter how gimmicky it is, it can only be viewed as a real service to the user, and given the possibilities, there’s no doubt it’s gonna be copied on other platforms.
I just hope they keep it as a free service offering promotional goodies to those who buy their PS3 games, rather than a moneygrabbing, micro-transaction clusterfuck, although even as I’m writing that and thinking about the supposed 10 million subscriber base, I’m just thinking “OF COURSE THEY’RE NOT”. They’re gonna grab the money and run, like any sane person would.
I’m not impressed with the PS3 as a whole though, having tried out both that and the 360. I must say that Sonys mindnumbingly arrogant self-glorification, completely without any sense of irony just makes me want it even less. It’s the Moussolini-machine as far as I’m concerned. Sticks it’s chin up really high and talks like roaring thunder, but it’s still an intolerable, pudgy douche that doesn’t think very fast.
Armitage said:
I don’t think anyone does arrogant self-glorification quite like Microsoft, actually. Remember the NXE update? Sorry, the “greatest moment in the history of the internet” I meant, obviously.
DeSpiritusBellum said:
Maybe I’ve just been living under a rock. I didn’t really hear any of that, it just jumped onto my Xbox one day. If that is the case, that’s obviously a major point against Microsoft, although they do have a higher batting average this generation.
I should’ve figured I’d end up in a fan war over that one, though. I just never thought that would happen to me!
I’m hardly about to deny that Microsoft is one of the world’s most unequivocally evil companies (I’ve tried cancelling my Xbox Live subscription – Er, slave contract once) or that any of the major criticisms against the Box regarding its reliability are positively true. I’m not a fanboy by any means. I just think their console is actually, functionally better when compared, and wastes far less of my time, which is something I massively appreciate in any gadget.
For example, I love the Fight Night series, and I played it both 3 and 4 like a rabid monkey on my Xbox360, but when I tried out the same game on my brothers Playstation 3, I was just amazed at the outrageous loading times of this, according to Sony, “vastly more powerful console”. I really despise wasting time looking at a static screen for any reason, especially when I’ve been promised more power.
And that’s not even starting on the grief of navigating the console interface itself, which was just ridiculously unintuitive, seeming to rely solely upon me just magically knowing where they put everything, since some of the choices made absolutely no sense, whereas the Box is really quite highly intuitive and descriptive when it comes to whatever you want to do. Especially considering the network and Media Center options.
Although I know it doesn’t stop anyone, you’d be hard pressed to argue that Sony haven’t dropped the ball with the PS3, just a little. I wouldn’t mind Sony more or less than anyone else if it wasn’t for their delusional statements, and even then, I’d still gladly buy one of their machines if they made it worth my while. Sadly, for the moment they just don’t, and I think it’s sad to see Sony living in some alternate universe where everything is apparently progressing exactly according to plan.
I’m not looking to offend anyone or press an agenda, it’s just an honest oppinion based on my own personal observations.
Gekidami said:
So what are these “delusional statements” then?
Armitage said:
@DeSpiritusBellum
“I should’ve figured I’d end up in a fan war over that one, though. I just never thought that would happen to me!”
Oh no!
bugmenot said:
@”dropped the ball”
Simultaneous digital and disc based releases, free online play, free social networking app, dvd upscaling, wifi/bluetooth/hdmi/hdd as standard, integrated browser, Sony has been on the front-line this generation forcing their competitors to follow suit. I can’t see how that can be called “dropping the ball”
Sony F***ed up in two ways. A difficult Processor(and architecture) and Blu-Ray( making console expensive and forcing a hard drive aswell as being the main reason the console was delayed-giving microsoft an early sales lead).
However the cell is finally bearing fruit and with the blu-ray winning the format war, a new revenue for sony’s consumer electronics division is opened up. On top of that, hdmi 1.3 and bluray as standard mean the ps3 is now a viable 3d movie player and from all accounts a 3d game player. So its two achilles heels may well turn out advantageous for the ps3