There's No Place Like Home
Sony's Pete Edward tells us why the new Home service for PS3 won't just be about game networking, but social networking, like never before.
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So, how far has the Home concept come along since the baldy-kept secret that was its announcement back at GDC? Well, the Beta trial is running internally, and, if our impressions of it and revelations made to us by Pete Edward from Sony's London Studio are anything to go by, there's a lot more to Home than initially thought - and when it launches, it will be just the beginning. Time for some housewarming...
"Ultimately, we can ban a PS3 from ever going online again - but that's a pretty hardcore punishment to make on somebody."
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As we all know by now, every user who registers for Home will be given a 'standard apartment' to use as their own private space, the likes of which we've seen in screenshots, and is still remarkably beautiful by anyone's standards - but it's the 'upgraded' apartments people are really going to be wanting. Players can position all manner of funky and stylish furniture around and all the objects in the world run with real time physics, so you can experiment with how you plonk stuff around. Pete even hurled a huge plasma HDTV down the stairs to make his point - we loved that the clips that were playing on the TV continued throughout the ordeal!
We checked out how easy it is to decorate your new apartment with your own photos, by taking a picture on a camera phone and then taking the Memory Stick from the out and inserting it into PS3 - the framed photo was on the wall within seconds, which was pretty cool. "It doesn't take too much imagination to see how far you could go with this, if you're out on a Friday night with your friends and embarrassing antics ensue, it's going to be easy to remind them of what went on," Pete told us.
It got our warped minds thinking about something, too. We asked Pete about the controversial questions arising after Home's announcement back at GDC, concerning the use of, shall we say, artistically expressive photos to decorate your apartment and then even inviting unsuspecting guests into your place.
P L E A S E V I S I T O U R S P O N S O R :
"The first thing to be aware of is that, in order to get into somebody's apartment, you have to have been invited or you invited them to join your friends list, and accepted that invitation. You then have to invite them to come to your apartment and they have to accept that invitation. So you can't 'drag' people into your apartment as such. However, if you're in someone's apartment and you feel like you've been subjected to behaviour or material that you feel is unsuitable and that you feel they should be reprimanded for, you are able to make a complaint against that person. And depending on the severity of the 'crime' that person has committed, we do have the ability to take various steps in terms of banning people from the service. Ultimately, we can ban a PS3 from ever going online again - but that's a pretty hardcore punishment to make on somebody, but it's also a good disincentive to mess around too much."
"Having said that, we want to give people the feeling like they're in an area that is their own area, and that they've got a certain amount of liberty between consenting adults to just kind of have a bit of a laugh in their own private apartment. We don't want people to feel like they're being constantly monitored, or that all of their behaviour is going to be under the microscope. It's just finding that balance really.
We can stream and cache full HD content to the be PS3 hard drive to be replayed either in your apartment or in one of those private screening rooms - you can then turn that into a full screen display and invite people to see it with you - it's a pretty rich environment.
Elsewhere on the 'world map' of Home - essentially the user's method of navigating around - we find areas for specific game publishers, for specific games, and there will be specific genre areas too, according to Edward. Thirdparty publishers have the ability to produce their own 'presence' in Home as well.
"This is very much a first pass at this map. We're also going to be producing some very powerful search tools, so you'll not only be able to search through all your friends within this environment, but also so that you're able to search for the specific kinds of games or interest areas that you're into, that kind of thing."
"The idea of user-to-user auctions, is certainly something that we intend to put in."
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But will users be able to earn money or buy and sell stuff, like they can in Second Life? "Ultimately, that is something that is on the cards. Not on day one, not for a while, but yes - the idea of user-to-user auctions, is certainly something that we intend to put in. And also that ties in very heavily with the idea of user-created content and tools, to create that content. And that's something that we're working very hard on in terms of being able to customise your character, design and ultimately build from scratch your own dream apartment, but also tools that will allow you to create and design smaller items that you could potentially market as well. There's also going to be the option for users to use their own scripting, for the particularly technical users to allow Java mini-games and stuff like that, to be created in your home space and maybe build up your bank of Java mini-games for example."
"What's interesting is that Home is the only service where you can just walk up to somebody, and get into a conversation with them. Any other online console service requires you to have played a game against somebody, before you can have any kind of chat with them or get them onto your friends list for example, so you can approach anyone and chat with them, find out if you have anything in common - and you can get on each other's friends list, without having played MotorStorm with them previously, which is quite a big step in turning this from just a game networking service, into a social networking service."
A lot of thought has gone into communication within Home - there's a predefined dictionary of phrases, greetings and contextual replies for ease of use, and because the meanings of such predefined dialogue is known by the system, this sort of conversation can automatically be translated into the many different languages supported by the system - so basically, you can finally chat up cute Japanese girls within in your apartment without learning any effort whatsoever! Of course, users can use the full on-screen keyboard - or plug in a virtual USB keyboard - to say their own stuff, in addition to the 'quick chat' options.
P L E A S E V I S I T O U R S P O N S O R :
Sounds interesting, but will Sony ever open up access outside of the PS3, perhaps on the PC? "The intention is that we will allow connectivity with Home from, for instance, mobile devices, like mobile phone or your PSP. Potentially, there could be the ability to connect with the Home service via other platforms as well."
"As time goes on, the content and the feature set is going to get more sophisticated - that's the beauty of a product that doesn't come on a disc."
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And how far can you go in getting the real dream apartment? "At the moment it's just a case of you can upgrade from one kind of apartment to another kind of apartment - at the moment are three. But we're working on tools that will enable you to design and then build your own apartment from kind of building blocks, if you like. Home is an evolving service; right now some of the functionality is relatively limited, and it's a case of choosing from pre-configured options to make things easy for the user. As time goes on, and as the user created content side of things, as the developer and publisher side of things develops as well, the content and the feature set is going to get more and more sophisticated. What the user, and publishers, are able to do within the environment, will become much more sophisticated as time goes on - and that's the beauty of a product that doesn't come on a single disc release."
(NEXT: MEDIA MOLECULE...)
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