14 DAY TRIAL // There's a pretty tough war waged on the console market, as the top three producers, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, are fighting for every customer. This battle gets even more intensive during the holiday season, when people are more than willing to pay a considerable amount of money for the products they want.
The console manufacturers know this and are trying to profit from it by launching new features or attractive games for their individual platforms. One of the highest selling points on the specification list of every console is the online service, which is a must-have for any product. The Xbox 360 has the New Xbox Experience, the Wii has the WiiWare services and the PlayStation 3 has the PS Network.
But now, Sony is getting ready to unveil something completely different, in the form of Home. It will be more of a social network for gamers, says Jack Buser, the director of this project, in a recent interview. He goes on saying that the system will be launched this month, but it will be previewed through an open beta that will give the development team the chance to see how the service will handle the big number of people.
“Playstation home makes online gaming a lot more like what multiplayer gaming used to be,” he says. “It will fundamentally change the way people play games or think about games. A friend's list in the past was a list of people you met in the real world or in the context of a particular game, what Playstation Home aims to do is abstract this out so that the friend's list has meaning. That's the core value of Home.”
Buser also stresses the fact that Home will be something completely different from other online services. “Home is totally different than anything out there. Yes we have an avatar based system, but the value is the idea of meeting new people, launching games together. It’s a social network for gamers. Avatars have become par for the course on every game console now. We wanted to create an avatar system you would be proud to call your own. Home gives you a virtual space that you can customize.”
All in all, some very interesting statements, which are sure to make a lot of PlayStation 3 users extremely happy and anxious to see the Home service with their own eyes. Let's just hope that Sony will end the wait soon and that finally, PS3 owners will come Home.