Check the GDC catch all thread.

It's nice... I guess.

Not that I like to defend the many stupid things Sony's done but I wonder how much people would be gushing over this if Microsoft was doing it and also charging money for it. Oh that's right, everyone.

Totally the wrong thread.

Go me.

What kind of cookie?

I bring five pages of GWJ PS3 Loverade goodness to the party!

It's still all about the games for me. And I have to admit that last gen belonged to Nintendo/Sony for me. In spite of my trist with Crackdown, Sony showing a casual gamer side could tilt me their direction. This is actually a good start if only because it shows they're thinking in uniquely about software still. We'll see if this yields actual games that are unique.

Why do people keep comparing this to Second Life? In Second Life you can actually do stuff. In Home you can only buy stuff from Sony and show it to other people. Maybe.

Also, every screenshot that has people on it has load of dialog. Where is this dialog coming from? Colour me suspicious, but are these people having lengthy dialogs by "typing" with their sixaxxxis (or whatever its name) controllers?

I wonder if this originally was planned to be free, or if it is only free now after this amazing store stocking job Sony has done over the past 3 months?

An alternative to PS3 Home in 5 easy steps!

Step 1: Save up $600
Step 2: Buy two 12-packs of Anchor Steam, tortillas, 6 avocados, and 2 limes.
Step 3: Make guacamole, have a beer, ponder the evolutionary significance of the scrotum.
Step 4: Invite actual friends to your actual home to drink some actual beer, and engage in an actual conversation where no is really rolling on the floor laughing whilst barbequeing kittens. Hell, go nuts and show off the fruit of your actual conspicuous consumption.
Step 5: Send me the $565 I just saved you.

The irony: my comment was tongue-in-cheek, but typed words have no tone. ^o^

Apologies if it sounded like an attack.

I agree with you about dispersed college buds and all, absolutely, I'm in the same boat. No, nothing at all wrong with online socializing, especially, as you said, once people start breeding. The bit that confuses me is whole meta-life aspect. Isn't telephone/IRC/Skype/email/forums/etc good enough?

"Hey chaps, I'll be on WoW tonight, ~7, BYOB"

Then meet up and hang in-game. Maybe I'm missing some part of the picture and just don't yet get it. Then again, I still don't get why my students insist on texting each other 15 times in a row rather than just CALLING THE OTHER PERSON, so maybe I'm just old and cranky.

So people are getting convinced to buy a PS3 due to a glorified chat room but not the actual software library? Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

I'm not getting convinced to buy it because of the glorified chat room. I was simply stating (and I agree with what you're saying, Bazarov, and didn't take your comments as an attack at all) that in the modern world virtual spaces are highly important for some of us to continue to be social in our hectic and disconnected world. Now for me personally, I loved (will love when I can afford it again) the 360 and the ability to just do voice chat, see when my friends are online, what they are/were playing, etc. That, to me, was very awesome. I was impressed and it seemed like a very efficient way to mix socializing with gaming. Perfect. Great. Two thumbs up.

However, when I see the stuff about Home, as I said earlier, what I see is that Sony is thinking about the casual gamer. I mean, Home screams casual gamer if only because I believe the more hardcore gaming crowd will in the end prefer the streamlined approach in XBox Live.

So this is where the Loverade comes in. I wouldn't want to spend any time in Home, personally. However, as I've said before, I'm not a big fan of the 360's game lineup. Other than Crackdown, Viva Pinata and the XBLA, I didn't see much that interested me. I'm more of a Sony or Nintendo guy. I'm a fan of games like Okami, SOTC, Katamari, Nintendogs, Electroplankton, Ico, Amplitude, random stuff like that. Mostly I'm a fan of games that aren't FPSs.

So what Home and that game they debuted today showed me is that Sony is going to continue to create original IP that doesn't necessarily involve overt violence. So perhaps, in spite of all their missteps, the PS3 will be supported by Sony and 3rd party devs with games where they take a chance on original IP that isn't necessarily violent. That makes the PS3 more tempting to me. Home doesn't sell me the PS3. Home just tells me that Sony is thinking that they are looking out for the more casual gamers out there and that's a hopeful sign when many of us are watching the Wii and it's anemic lineup and thinking that's going to be our casual game machine.

...Gaming Steve is back in the game.. He was very, very excited by all of this, as was I... you Haters.

Yeah, and that's what makes this so weird. PS3 has been priced and marketed as high end home electronics, and the pricing is not going to change any time soon. At $500-600 it's not a machine for casual gamers, it's a machine for the uber-hardcore.

It's like Sony looked at the big sales success of the Wii and thought they could grab back some of that casual market by shoehorning in a needlessly elaborate online interface tailored for the casual gamer myspace AOL chat crowd. That might actually help them in 3 years when the PS3 price goes down.