‘What if…?’ Home Edition
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It is fair to say that Sony’s Home project has not gotten off to the peachiest of starts. With delays, accusations of rush-releases and even heckles about lack of content, Sony have their work cut out ahead of them to turn the opinion of We, The People, into yay-sayers rather than nay-sayers.
But let’s be honest; how vastly complex must it be to engineer something as huge as Home? With the servers, programming, licensing, designing and overall aspirations of the original concept weighing heavily on Sony’s shoulders, is it any surprise that there have been foibles and stumbles? Little wonder it is almost unique in the world of interactive entertainment…
Frankly, I’m sick to the back molars of people griping and gurning about there being nothing to do in Home.
Jump through onto our soapbox and tell us what you would do if you were in charge.
Here is your chance to test your mettle against the SuperCorp that is Sony: come up with an idea for a home space similar in size to the Home Theatre or Arcade spaces. Fill it with something (or things?) that would attract people to get into Home. Not just as a one-off ‘I had nothing better to do’ walk-by, but something that will keep people coming back to Home, week after week, day after day.
No prizes to be won. Just respect. Nothing obscene or illegal.
To get you started, some of my thoughts follow:
HomeBay – In a project similar to the insanely successful eBay, there are places to buy real-world items from virtual shops. Not virtual clothes at £1.99 a pop or a virtual house for the same price as a DVD, but real things. Not from other Home users, but from proper shops.
Galleries – A light, airy virtual space full of snooty individuals who pour over every brush stroke before splashing out £30 on a print to be shipped by the seller. A digital version could be made available as a piece of wall-art for your personal space. Or you could throw £50,00,000 away on a pickled calf with painted horns. Your choice.
So come on, brain-boxes. What would you do with an empty Home space?
Bubbles to the best comments, as always.
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I reckon ‘Sports Spaces’ – as you’re a UK site, think a Man U site, where you can go to have a yarn with other Man U fans, see replays on video screens of the latest match highlights and messages from Alex Ferguson (if he’s still the coach – sorry, I’m not really a soccer fan), interactive Man U trivia quizes, maybe a penalty-shooting mini-game? I reckon I’d go along and I don’t even follow Man U. This doesn’t need to just be soccer (or football as you Poms call it
), it could be cricket, Rugby, NFL, whatever. You could even have trailers for all of the games that feature the particular side/sport running inside it – and once game launching is up and running, where better to find a bunch of people who all want a game of that particular sport?
Hey Axe99 – great idea but just to mention – we’re not a UK site. When DolphGB opened up the writing duties last year, PS3Attitude truly became a global site. We cover the US PSN weekly update (and the Japanese – if we get the chance) and have spies from the US and all over Europe.
Back to your idea, with EA’s new Sports Complex coming this Spring don’t be surprised if they expand on the initial three mini “sport” games (kart racing, golf and poker – which I’m not sure classifies as a sport these days) and introduces soccer, darts, foosball, who knows what else !
Woah, sorry Brodesian (but for the record, there’s nothing wrong with being in the UK
) – and darts would rock – now all they need is to add a beer-drinking mini game that works alongside the darts….
Of course there’s nothing wrong with being from the UK!
No UK. No Monthy Python. And that, sir, would be a tragedy!
(There are a lot of other great thrings about the UK of course, I just happen to be a big Python fan)
You could also have ‘Walls’ – think the Democracy Wall in China in 1978 (I think) where the denizens of home could go along and post all kinds of messages for other Home Folk. You could have the messages link to clubs or particular home spaces, and maybe have them arranged in a themed way. This might be a tricky one to implement (given the numerous instances and the like), but I’m sure the tech-heads at Sony could make it work.
That’s pretty cool. I’m sure they’re had issues with “copyright” and “inappropriate content” but I hope they go down this path and let people interact with people at a larger level.
I would like home spaces of real citys, like Paris with the Eiffeltower, New York with The Statue of Liberty etc.
That would be cool. I reckon that, technically, it would be difficult but who knows where Home will be in two or three years!
That’s a pretty funky idea – you could even link it in with real-life tourist organisations – plan your holiday on home?!
Haha! I like some of these idea – especially The Wall. Sounds great!… keep ‘em coming, folks!
People who haven’t used Home just don’t get it – I had suggestions from some people at work of a Bingo Hall… Hrmmmm…
It’s only a matter of time before there’s a Home Swingers Room. I’m still waiting for the ability to take off my shirt.
I would really like a preview room for games. Where you can see whats coming and what to look forward to. This room should be run by Sony and all games should be presented equally. The games should be presented with videos and ingame shots as posters.
I would also like a special area for DLC. Many of the games looks so abstract, that I have no idea what they are all about, before I have already bought them.
Now we are at it. I would like an area for all the games out there, where you can see intro/ingame videos for all the games. They could make some kind of a blackboard next to the gamescreen where people can come and comment the game, or even sign if they have the game, so you can see ex. 20.356 people claims to own this game.
Last but not least, how about a Playstation Store room. Where you can go and buy games. Just like Playstation Store shopping centre.
Ye and give me a place in my appartment, where I can show off some of my Trophies, that would be nice. And let me take a picture of myself with my EyeToy and hang it on the wall.
Sort of like a meta-gamespace – cool idea (and a good way of drawing attention to the growing back-catalogue of quality PS3 games) – include links to demos where available, and maybe have vids of ‘makings of’ or the like…
And how about a Home Newspaper?
Where Sony can give us some insights. Maybe even sell commercial space.
Right now, all I want is what was advertised all those moons ago.
I want that Trophy Room where I walk in and see all my 360+ trophies, and where you can be invited to peruse my stash of bronze, silver and gold (and the one platinum – ooooh, it is shiny).
I want the EA space and the ability to play basketball, just like they showed us over 18 months ago. I know the official PR only just came out, but this isn’t really a ‘new’ space – more just the announcement of one we’d already seen.
I’d like the current spaces to be better and have more in them, such as being able to play with a Frisbee, have a game of crazy golf etc. And it would be nice if pool got an update that allows me to put spin on the cue ball.
Maybe I’m being all short-term here, but instead of thinking about fantastical new areas, I really just want what they have to be better, plus deliver the stuff they already showed us was coming. That also includes the PC interface for social networking and the ability to actually put HDD content in a picture frame or TV, both of which are still missing in action.
I want a Home Gym
Think about it … you could mash the buttons on the controller so your avatar can bench-press or do some squats. Fail to mash enough buttons and you get injured and some nice looking pumped people have to help you out the door.