Posted 03/13/2007 @ 06:30:43 AM by Joseph Molnar Filed under: PlayStation 3 , Product Feedback , Product Ideas

When rumours of Sony's PlayStation 3 Home first came to light I couldn't help but think of books like Neuromancer, Snow Crash and the movie The Matrix. Now that we have a good idea of what Home is, I thought I would put forth some of the more (or less) reasonable additional ideas that what went through my head when I first read the rumour.

Note: I'm purposely not outlining how any of this could be monetized.

Avatars

• The avatar should be customizable such that it may not even look human (think Spore).
• Reward exploration of Home, time spent in Home or certain actions in Home. Example rewards:
  • Allow better looking/more sophisticated avatars (read Snow Crash)
  • Gain abilities like flying, swimming, jumping (e.g. Crackdown)
  • Earn homes in more exclusive locations
  • Create in-game scripts, objects and even full spaces (e.g. Second Life)
• Users can get in-Home portable media players so that they can watch/listen to music and video accessible to their console while anywhere in the Home world.
  • The accessible media should include what is on their PC (similar to media center extensions and media connect in the Xbox 360)
  • The media player can be shared with another user while both users are online (like how you can share headphones in the real world).

The Home World

• Make a proper sandbox with sophisticated physics that is fully explorable and appears as one contiguous world with no loading screens (except when teleporting).
  • Fully connected internationally; public spaces exist for each geographic region but any location can be visited.
  • Spaces can have environmental effects (e.g. day/night, rain/snow) based on current conditions in a real-life geographic location
  • Certain spaces can only be discovered by exploring. This may require abilities like flying/swimming (see Avatar abilities above).
• Allow communities/clubs to register to have large invite-only spaces in Home.
  • Support existing web communities (e.g. Evil Avatar, Kotaku) by allowing single sign-on so users of those web communities have instant access to the Home space.
  • Support reading the web community news inside the community space (Sony already mentioned they could show web sites within Home).
• Support in-Home exclusive events:
  • Have tie-ins to real life events viewable through video feeds (e.g. be front-row at GDC while sitting in Home).
  • Like a massive multi-player game, support Sony and community driven challenges including tie-ins to alternate realty games.
• All locations, including personal spaces, are persistent and accessible to people with authorization to enter.

Personal Homes

• A user can give people keys to access their home and keys can be revoked any time.
• Some areas of the home can be fully private/invite only.
• A person's personal space can take on any look/style.
  • A person can have an outside area that is customizable, from gardens to sky, or environmental elements like rain.
  • The outside of a house is customizable (e.g. dilapidated shack)
  • Internal rooms are fully customizable (e.g. you can have a cell-shaded room).

Not Game Trophies, but Game Rooms

When you buy a game it gives you a whole new room in your house. Achievements can stack up in this room, but you can do plenty more.

• Rooms are styled after the game (e.g. dungeon for an RPG or garage for a Racing game).
  • Allow atmospheric music from the game
  • Allow animated figure/models from the game (e.g. a racing game's garage room could contain the cars you own in the game)
  • Your avatar could optionally change to the character from the game. When guests join you in the room and they own the game, you see their avatar change to their game's character.
  • If the game developer didn't create their own room then a room can be auto-created randomly from a series of templates created by Sony based on the genre of the game.
• Save games could be launched here.
  • Take on appearance suitable for the game (e.g. garage doors for racing games or a portcullis for fantasy games).
  • Multi-player/co-op games could use this as the launching point to a particular save game for the group.
• Support accessing tie-ins to other spaces or web properties. For example, if a game has an auction house to sell cars, then it could be directly accessible in this room.
• See your friend's scores/achievements from here, including a portal to their room.
• Support optional mini-games (e.g. if an RPG has an in-game puzzle/card-game, it could be made available here too).

In Closing ...

Home has garnered a lot of attention but hopefully this gives you some insight as to why I was a little under whelmed, particularly after seeing LittleBigPlanet. To engage gamers and the gaming community I believe the missing elements include:

1. a sense of creativity
2. a feeling of personal involvement
3. reasons to want to spend more than an initial investigation in Home

Comments

[... so said 'Lewis' on 03/13/2007 @ 02:06:50 PM [Direct Link]]

To ban geeks who spoil games for everyone! you know. the ones who go on about how perhaps "Home" should be done, and when it is out, will cry over little things like... ooooh i can't make my avatar look like an orc! Boo bloody hoo! Get a life and just wait and see! People who know what they are doing are in charge of what is happening with "Home" Thank god it's not a bunch of fat geek yanks who love "The Matrix" and are into "manga" Just sit tight! and play the games.

[... so said 'Ming' on 03/13/2007 @ 04:29:25 PM [Direct Link]]

Some other ideas to add to the melting pot

:: (Home World) Teleportation - the ability to "jump" from world to world
:: Range - how far can a user go in a given "day" - this could be an ability earned over time.
:: (Avatar) Binding of abilities with the physics engine -- the more you play, the more things you can do (i.e. move larger rocks, etc.)
:: (Avatar) Jobs / privileges - users could become "tradesmiths" or specialists which make them sought after or unique within the world. I.e. you could allow people to access your home, and if they are a gardener, they could make changes to your yard. Users could earn a set of achievements which give them a rank in some specialty (apprentice, master, craftsman, etc.)
:: (Game Rooms) Tournament rooms / tracks - enter a tournament in one room and try to beat all the others in the room before advancing to the next room.

[... so said 'Skyfire' on 03/14/2007 @ 10:54:24 AM [Direct Link]]

Those are some great ideas, and should be a future indication of what the Xbox Live dash could become in the future.

Except around the area of Avatar abilities, I think these customization and abilities are best gained *in game*, based on achievements, digital item purchases etc. Afterall, the purpose of Home is for gamers to buy and play the games. Actions performed or achievements obtained in the Home environment can lead to benefits in game. For example, by gaining the ability to fly and unlock a hidden area in Home, a player unlocks a new Halo multiplayer map or something similar.

Although to think of it, the Home environment itself can become a fertile ground for advertising, thus making it a source of revenue. For example, a player can buy a virtual 3D CocaCola object, drink it and boost their abilities so they can do something in the virtual world that wasn’t possible before.

[... so said 'Joseph Molnar' on 03/14/2007 @ 07:03:26 PM [Direct Link]]

Hey Skyfire. The idea of the Home world affecting associated game worlds is an interesting idea. Could be as simple as mini-games, like the card game I mentioned, resulting in gaining money for in-game characters. Interesting.

[... so said 'Henry Harris' on 11/28/2008 @ 12:10:12 AM [Direct Link]]

Dear Joseph:

I'm a retired NASA scientist who's done some technical development work on advanced projects (See book by Joel Achebach on me leading an effort to develop interstellar flight) and I'm I'm very interested in emerging, break-through technologies.

I've made a considerable investment in a high definition system designed around the PS3 because of some initial reports on Home I'd read calling it a virtual world. As a beta tester, I've looked at the initial stage of Home with some disappointment because of its lame sense of physical space which I consider critical to the concept. I've written to them with no response. I'd be very interested in knowing what their actual intentions are in this regard. It sounds like your site might be a good one to watch.

Henry

[... so said 'Joseph Molnar' on 11/28/2008 @ 02:24:37 PM [Direct Link]]

Hey Henry,

Thanks for the comment and hope you enjoy the blog. This post is quite old (within a few days of the original Home annoucement) but given the changes Home has seen I would say Sony realized Home needed changes.

While I cannot say they saw this blog post, they have introduced some of the ideas listed here into Home. In particular, in-Home events, Clubs and Game Rooms are all things Sony now does within Home.

As I said, I cannot say Sony read this post but companies definitely use the Internet as a means to monitor the pulse of the community so you never know when a comment, a blog post or an email may influence an insider.