Hi everyone. I’ve got some huge news for you.
As you know, we’ve been working hard to fill PlayStation Home with hundreds of games – everything from pool tables and dart boards to full-on space shooters like Novus Prime: Escalation, zombie slashers like Dead Island Zombie Survivor, and massive online racing games like Sodium 2: Project Velocity. Today we are excited to announce a complete redesign of the heart of PlayStation Home to reinforce our evolution into the ultimate social game platform on consoles today. This redesign will connect you with the world of hundreds of games in Home faster and better than ever before.
Coming in Fall 2011, this new core experience for PlayStation Home features a “hub and districts” design that will help you find games, people and places that fit your favorite game genres. The design features a new Hub that integrates games, quests, community events, and user-generated content, while providing you with additional navigation, shopping, socialization and entertainment options.
The new, futuristic Hub (shown below) brings an ever changing roster of games right to the center of Home, including Cogs from Codename: Lazy 8 Studios which will be featured front and center on day one. The Hub will also feature a new Activity Board filled with games to play, rewards to be won, a new UGC events system, and cool stuff to discover.
Powering this Activity Board is a massive new questing system that literally transforms Home itself into a game if you so choose. From frequently updated community activities to huge, branching narrative adventures, this questing system will provide game play options delivered to you in ways never before imagined.
Additionally, surrounding the Hub will be districts based on game genres to suit your mood. Whether you want an intense, in-your-face experience, or a more chill, laid-back environment, these districts will be packed with games and navigation points leading you to content that suits your style.
- With a gritty, urban aesthetic reminiscent of a first-person shooter level, the Action District (shown above) is the perfect destination for gamers looking for action, shooter and horror games.
- Come experience the outside-the-stadium feel of Sportswalk, which features up-to-the-minute major league sports scores, headlines and highlights, and sports-themed games.
- Enter a lush beachfront jungle full of sights to see and adventure-themed games to discover in the Adventure District.
- Pier Park (shown above) is your destination for carnival, puzzle, outdoor and arcade games, featuring a waterfront boardwalk, Ferris wheel and a fun party zone that is linked to dedicated indie and arcade game spaces.
On top of all this great news, I’m excited to announce that we are going to upgrade Home’s core client to provide a streamlined initial user experience, getting you in and playing games faster than ever before. This upgrade will be deployed as a separate release from the redesign, and together they will underscore PlayStation Home’s evolution into a world filled with hundreds of games ready for you to play, making Home the ultimate social game platform on consoles.
We hope you’re as excited about PlayStation Home’s new core experience as we are!
+ Conrad_Max on August 23rd, 2011 at 9:26 am said:
+ FOUR95NATIVE on August 23rd, 2011 at 9:00 am said:
“While you guys r out reconstructing everything add an idea building . A place where home goers can vote on ideas and document their ideas. It’s like the community forums share your idea post ,but specifically for home.”
We do have a forum specifically for Home. It includes a monthly suggestion thread and a board to discuss and expand on those suggestions. Many things we have in Home came from ideas shared by the community.
Indeed. Hopefully that forum will be linked to Home and can be easily accessed from within.
Much needed.
Continued: When those working for you running home are informed about this or any of the other problems with home these reports are ignored in favour of chatting with a handful of boot kissers. It’s not only dead wrong and very unprofessional of you and your staff but exposes you to legal liability of aiding & abetting the worst offenders through shielding them by your inaction. Theres a myriad of other problems on home such as as the insanely long loading times. Excessive and near constant lag frequently resulting in needless disconnects. Its just not worth it coming on home for a conversation with friends only to be harassed then disconnected and waiting 5-10 minutes to get back on again. Theres also the matter of the poor quality of items and spaces on home. Most of the paid content just isn’t worth buying at the ever increasing prices. $0.49 to $1.49 per clothing item is tolerable for most people, $4.99 $9.99 or higher in some cases clearly is not. You have a chance to address the problems with this redesign of home and by all means you should as its very late coming. No software should still bear a “beta” tag 2+ years after its publicly available.
I don’t have Good Internet so I can’t do ps home. If there was a way to make a disk with all of home and no Internet connection required (except the people) that would be awesome!
Another thing! Can we walk down the bay area in our Harbor Studio Apartment, we would just love that!
So when is the real date. I remember it was going to be released Fall of ’07 and it took over a year to get there and even that was at the end of fall.
Tried Home a few times over the years, most recently for the KZ3 unlock points.
If Home was more integrated into the XMB and allowed for game launching with all titles, I would be more inclined to use it. Give me a reason to go there!
If I could go into Home right now, look through a list of EVERY PS3 game available, meet players for that specific game, and launch that game, then I would use Home.
If there was a bulletin board, one for every single game, where you could leave a note saying you are looking to join a clan, or meet players, or looking for a co-op partner. Someone else could search that board for that specific game and respond to your message. You would get a notification when someone responds.
As of now Home is just a bunch of random people running around. There is zero unity. How do you meet people of similar interests?
with that said, the redesign does look nice, but that alone doesn’t make me want to launch it.
Also it would be good if Sony actually pushed for developers to use PROPER game launching. Even make it mandatory, you want people to use this service, give them a reason too!
conclusion: You and your team have a lot of work cut out for them and its your and their own fault. Home as been all but abandoned far too long. Massive problems have been willfully ignored with no valid excuse. Jack Buser I’m telling you I’ve already told Locust_Star & Glasswalls, either get with the program and start doing your job or step aside and make room for someone else who will. This “home renovation” of yours is the pefect chance for you correct past mistakes and inept performance. As it stands home is a complete failure with no possible excuse for its sorry state. If you and your team miss this chance to correct the problems then it could be the last straw. Frankly from what I’ve seen in the past 2 years of you and your teams job performace this “upgrade” probably will be a failure like the others so take this chance to turn it around before home becomes yet another failed has been of the gaming industry.
Glad to see there will be loading improvements. Also good to read that indie games will be featured (I love those li’l guys).
However, Central Plaza, you will be missed. Is there any possibility of a “wayback machine” in Home, to revisit these Spaces of yore? Heck, maybe even see the special versions of the Plaza, such as during the Killzone 3 event or the current Dead Island one. I’d hate to see a Space gone forever, especially places like the three Irem Spaces.
Oh, and while my dailies are currently Aurora, Novus Prime, and the Sodiums (used to include Seaside of Memories, until I got each of the ocean items), this questing seems like it’ll destroy me, heh heh.
trophy support would be awesome in home
hey jack B. heyw assup.. Glad to see you getting home where it needs to be. Very good look and etc. And fall start in about a few weeks from now.. I just everything runs smoothly.. I know you guys have alot new clubs . i cant wait to see them :)
mcbuttz78
vp-psn legioniarre group
This look AWESOME! I like the idea of having an actual world map instead of a bunch of thumbnails on a screen. And some in world user generated content, are you for real?
Oh! Is there any way to integrate the “Recently Played” user list with PS Home games? Seeing who I raced in Sodium or who I co-oped with in Novus would be aces, especially since I’m in there so often.
So, does this redesign mean that the whole world is pretty much getting new spaces and games? Or is this redesign TOTAL meaning enhanced graphics and new walking animations and menus and stuff?
…and to echo, yes, Trophy support. AND AUTOMATIC SAVE BACKUP SUPPORT FOR HOME. Much as I can’t use that feature (multiple users, so I don’t Auto-Login), being sure my Home tweaks are shipped off to your servers would be a relief.
Lastly (hopefully!), will we still be able to add Spaces to Favourites? I’ve gotten very used to the button presses for my dailies, even without the images loaded.
+ nosdrugis on August 23rd, 2011 at 9:42 am said:
“Indeed. Hopefully that forum will be linked to Home and can be easily accessed from within.
Much needed.”
I’d rather not have a link to the forum from Home. I suspect we will then end up with a lot of “drive by” posts – trolling. Having the web address is fine, but not as a link. If someone wants to make a change, I am sure they will be willing to put a tiny bit of effort into getting to the site. Trolls, thankfully, rarely have the time.
Can’t wait to check this out! Good work, and all you users out there if you don’t like like or have to complain about every little thing you didn’t get DON’T USE IT!
I found the layout really similar to the McWorld layout that my kids play on the computer that is offered by McDonalds.
Keep up the good work,
i like home and i think it could be cool once u guys are done with it but what about downloadable games and i am not talking about stuff u have on the psn now o no i am talking about stuff like black ops, mw2 or mw3 (when released), red dead redemption or dead space 2, batman arkym asylum, uncharted 2, resistance 1 & 2, MX vs ATV any of the last three releases of the series, fallout 3 or new vegas any of sony aaa sports games, tekken 6, fear2 & 3, some kids games like toy story 3 or something please release games on the psn o wait GTA VI
+ KidCommando on August 23rd, 2011 at 9:48 am said:
“If Home was more integrated into the XMB and allowed for game launching with all titles, I would be more inclined to use it. Give me a reason to go there!”
Every game that has an online mode can be launched from within Home. But there are two issues. Some games support full game launch capability (all game lobby fuctions are done within Home and we can play with people not on our Friend List) and universal game launching (lobby functions are done within the game itself an all players have to be on our Friend List).
The other issue is: Many people do not know how to properly use the Game Launching function. Explain the above and teach them.
So will personal spaces be tied into the redesign location wise because that would be really cool to see somewhere like the carnival from my apartment.
To be honest. This is actually cool. Im exited to check it out… But to be honest, again, I’d rather have a nice firmware upgrade with super awesome sick [DELETED], rather than a Home update. Just an opinion. Thanks Sony!
This sounds like an excelent idea! I don’t visit Playstation Home really often because there are so many places that I just dont know where to start… Hopefully this will help new gamers to go back Home ^_^. Also is there any way that we could get more than 2 Interactive items in our personal space? Thanks!
So are we still in beta or this is the whole shabang?
So I guess this update covers places like Central Plaza, the Bowling Alley, Gamers Lounge etc…
This new update seems promising from what I am seeing in these screen shots. Just to be clear, we are going to be able to keep all of the stuff we paid for, earned and collected right? I already see that places like Sodium and Aurora will stay in tact.
Seriously though, this update is needed. I’m so glad that you are working towards bringing the Home experience closer to the games we love to play. I’m also really excited about the whole new setting especially the boardwalk. I can see that it has that shore arcade feel to it which has me pumped. Thanks for the update Jack. I’ll be looking forward to the update this fall. This is very exciting news indeed :-)
It looks awesome, but I wonder will it have something for us….Hardcore gamers? Pool and bowling is cool and all but it only goes so far :/
Ahh, snap!!!
This looks great! Thanks Sony. The two things that most interested me about the announcement are the emphasis on social gaming and multiplayer.
The ability to meet, socialize and interact with other players is unique to the PS Home gaming platform and that’s what sets Home apart from any other gaming experience that has been created.
Some games that have been created in Home allow for interaction between players, the ability to socialize and collaborate and those games have created a great gaming experience that can’t be seen on any other platform.
Xi and the EA Poker tables were great examples of games that allowed for social interaction and collaboration and that gaming experience hasn’t happened on a platform outside of Home.
Sodium 2: Project Velocity is an awesome game, but it could just as well have been a PS3 game since users visiting the space see a long row of avatars lined up along the railing in the game and very little interaction among players.
I’d love to see Sony and developers creating more games that allow for that unique interaction that can’t be found on any other gaming platform!
Holy sweet Jeebus that’ll be a big download haha. Looks pretty cool. I don’t spend too much time in PS Home except for the little feature/promo mini-games but this looks pretty cool.
Run, jump, and climb please. Thanks.
FWIW, I’d rather have a large map with various places to explore than a lot of smaller places/mini-games. How about an area(s) for gamers that allows various actions from games. For example, the smack from LBP would be nice or possibly a dragon punch (could be purchased;). Add a good map and the run, jump, and climb and it’s a great place for gamers to goof off and have fun. That’s my .02 anyway.
It’s just not fun for me as it is now.
Will the avatars be replaced with less hideous avatars? I hate this avatar system. I haven’t used home in years, maybe, HUGE MAYBE, this might make me fire it up.
@PirateHarlock I’m sorry but you are just overreacting. I’ve yet to see one instance of pedophiles or harrasment against women. I can see a lot of guys hitting on girls, but what you are saying is just a complete exaggeration. Honestly, you probably have seen one instance but every time you log on? Yeah… Right. Anyway, about the report never working when you send it? Really? I can send a report every time I need to without a hitch, but for me I almost never send one, and I go on a lot.
Oh and constant kicks, favouring boot kissers, insanely long loading issues? I go on with AT LEAST 5 people on home and we maybe experience that maybe once a month. Quit crying about prices too. Some are from actual name brands, hence the higher price. Also those 4.99 – 9.99 prices you’re complaining about, meh, they could be cheaper but what are you REALLY complaining about, $5.64 is not a lot, plus they don’t FORCE you to buy them.
Conclusion: I don’t even want to address the beta concern because, wow more things to complain about. Finally, Home being a failure? You obviously don’t know what you mean because here a a ton of people who enjoy it and Sony actually profits from what I hear. Yeesh, I know I’d be contradicting myself when I say you are getting worked up over something that personally doesn’t happen to you, but really. You are.
Sweet more lame crap but I still cant have a voice chat with my friends while playing a game, thanks Sony. Back to xbox I go. Shame you guys are wasting such a superior system with terrible online services.
I think it would be awesome as well if we could have live streaming and music on PS home. Because most of the time when we use the mics to play music it just gets staticy. We could all listen to the same music and actually understand it, and overall we would have a great time like always on PS home.
Great news! I’m glad to see the team hard at work!
I hope new and better costumes will come to follow. Costumes we have no are kind of all the same. I want costumes that make your avatar REALLY stand out. Like maybe some animal costumes that actually change the way you move and what not.
Oh and AMAZING UPDATE? I think so…
Have a new PS Home with live music and videos would be pretty awesome to have. Talk about party central :)
Nobody cares about Home anymore. Why don’t they spend more time giving us better firmware updates such as revamping the boring/slow XMB, cross-game chat, voice messaging capabilities, and online invisible mode. Whatever happened to the most requested features people were voting on? Did that just get pushed aside and burried?
Speaking of updates if were getting a new PS Home, would we have the same schedule for updates?
I agree 100% wolverine, sony doesnt care at all, thats the conclusion I am coming to.
I agree with the firmware updates…but, srsly…XrossGameChat is never coming. I’ll wait for it on ps4.
Any News on Splinter Cell Trilogy HD!!!
Sep 27, 2011 North America…Why does Europe get it first!!! Kinda crazy…
Sep 16, 2011 Europe
TJF588, I agree with you a wayback maching to the past spaces would be awesome. visit every place that we loved on PS home. That my fellow PSN gamer is a AWESOME idea. :)
Yea I agree with you as well Street_Killaz we seem to have the last choice. its kinda a bummer sometimes, but as well sometimes its pretty great.
will this fix the random server booting, random mic cutting out on people and morons ho freeze up servers?
please tell me chess won’t be going away… that’s pretty much the only thing i still play in home…
AWESOMESAUCE Jack , I can’t wait to check it out!!! 8)
Home REALLY needs a refresh. It’s quite bland in its current state.