Sony Home Versus Second Life

Sony's Home for the Playstation 3 is potentially launching in just a few weeks, and it's looking like an exciting way for virtual worlds to tap into the gamer market. Three Speech, a semi-official Playstation blog produced in partnership with Sony, just posted an interview with Jamie Macdonald, VP of Worldwide Studios, and Peter Edward, Director of the PlayStation Home Platform Group, at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival to chat about Home and, in part, how it matches up with Second Life. "Second Life is kind of a solitary activity, although you’re in an environment where there are other people – but where you are, it’s a solitary activity," said Macdonald. "Whereas with the PlayStation 3, Home is under the TV, and you’re there, probably with other people, enjoying the experience as a whole. Although there’s only one of you walking around on-screen, it’s more of a family activity."

The talk also ranges over the location-based monitoring and hardware-based bans and age verification that Sony has addressed before, including offering up 18-and-over casinos or video rooms for adult video game trailers. Chris Carella at the Electric Sheep Company points out that since Home builds in geo-location, some of those casinos could offer non-US residents actual online gambling.

Edward pointed out that Home had been in development long before Second Life came out, so it's not meant to be a Playstation 3 version of the virtual world, but he admits that some comparisons are obvious, though Home has an advantage of being tied to a hardware platform.

It’s understandable that people would do that, as they are quite similar, superficially. But Home has been in development for quite a long time, and its roots came from online gaming rather than social networking, and the social networking aspect has grown from that. But Second Life has hardware issues, as obviously it’s PC-based and has to cater to the lowest common denominator, and it’s not an easy thing to get up and running, whereas Home has been deliberately created to be something that anyone can get into. And because it’s on the PlayStation 3, we know the hardware everyone has, and we can exploit that to the maximum.

The other advantage that Edwards believes Home has in being console based is that it's easier to draw non-gaming family members in. Since you play on a TV, anyone walking by might hop on and become a regular user. Since most virtual worlds cater to a more varied audience than the traditional 18-34 male gamer, it will be interesting to see if the Playstation 3 can reach past its buyer and into the family.

Comments

[Mr Blobby]

This statement is bizarre!:

"Second Life is kind of a solitary activity, although you’re in an environment where there are other people – but where you are, it’s a solitary activity," said Macdonald. "Whereas with the PlayStation 3, Home is under the TV, and you’re there, probably with other people, enjoying the experience as a whole. Although there’s only one of you walking around on-screen, it’s more of a family activity."
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This is exactly why Sony's Home is going to have major problems. People don't want to be standing around chatting to anonymous dorks over the internet while the rest of their family looks on.

Call me crazy, but it's as though the guy is fully aware of the problem and so he's deliberately inverted it to try to make the problem go away.

"Toothache is great because it helps us to stay awake at night."

Yeah, right..

[Tony]

I thought the "Since you play on a TV, anyone walking by might hop on and become a regular user."

Was odd? How many people are going to just be walking by a PS3 connected to a TV and say "oh, I think I'll try that Home thing on this." huh?

I also thought the comment you mentioned was odd.

[Dobre Vanbrugh]

Last Thursday Sony gave a presentation of Home here in Rotterdam at E-Day. They said sort of the same thing and more or less pointing out that SL was basically about sex and gambling.
I think Sony Home will be a big succes though, since they have such a huge userbase and will be combining games, film and music in one online space.
For those looking for a certain level of self expression and interaction that goes beyond a regular chat, Home might not be the place to be.

Heres a post about this presentation including some new footage of the Beta version of Home: http://www.lostinthemagicforest.com/blog/?p=41

[RIP]

Why in the world dont these World developers listen to what people want instead of trying to figure out what to sell them and how they think. The key to making these worlds work is customer services and filling a demand or need, not creating one with screwed up logic. I read thru the different blogs covering this subject and the view i get is that people want a way to express themself to each other. They dont need another silly game,a facebook or myspace approach. I also have to agree this sony article is very Bizarre indeed!

[Alex]

"to express themselves to each other" is a good way to put it, RIP. There's a couple of questions though, namely: 1. How do you know what exactly is needed? 1% or less of most vocal 'users' producing 99% or more noise... whom/what do they represent, how do you think? 2. There are MULTIPLE ways to express yourself to somebody, including but not limited to bigbrotherbook.com myspaceatmurdoch.com and other, don't blame people using them, or are you not?

Please advise. :)

[Jan44]

Sony is the most ridiculous company right now. They lost the next-gen race against Nintendo... the killed Lik-Sang. They put rootkits on CDs.
now they are desperate to sell "Home" to us, but neither Second Life users, nor Gamers are that stupid. Home is not Second Life, because SL is about creativity, and Home about chatrooms.
Oh, and the DS pwns the PSP anytime.