Register Now!

61 Frames Per Second

Heading Home: Revisiting the Curious Case of Playstation Home

Posted by John Constantine



Sony said it was coming before 2008 breathed its last and, hey, here it is. Playstation Home will finally be open to the public as of tomorrow, close to two years after it was announced and a full year after its original release window. But even though PS3 owners across the world will finally be able to download Home 1.0, it still isn’t abundantly clear what they’re going to be able to do in Home once they get there. Here are the things I am one-hundred percent certain you will be able to do in Home on Thursday:

- Make yourself an avatar. You will have proportions far more human than those of your Mii or Xbox Experience caricature, but your new digital proxy will be all the more terrifying, its face fresh from Uncanny Valley Farms. You will also be able to dress in the simple attire of a Diesel Jeans catalog model.

- You will, apparently, be able to drink Red Bull. Digital Red Bull. You will drink it on Red Bull Island where you can fly a Red Bull plane. Or something.

- You can hang out in a Far Cry 2 lounge. As to whether or not you can ruthlessly exploit the diamond trade or dig bullets out of your fashionable avatar while hanging out in said lounge, I cannot say. None of the other announced lounges will be available for digital chillin’ and/or illin’.



- You can open a club if you like. For money. How do you customize said club? Who knows. How much will it cost? Couldn’t say. What can you do there? Dance. Walk around. Stuff.

- You can play billiards and bowl with people, which is nice. Twenty years ago, you used to pay fifty dollars for videogame pool. As long as these games play better than they do in Grand Theft Auto IV, they will be nice diversions.

- You and a friend can meet up at a fake movie theater and watch a new trailer for Watchmen. Yay.

- Talk to people via text. I have no idea if it has voice support.

These are the things you can do in Home. Beyond the billiards and bowling, none of this sounds particularly fun or essential. In fact, since Playstation Home isn’t the default place you go to when you turn on the PS3, I’m skeptical as to whether or not people will even use it.

For the Playstation owners reading, are you going to download Home? What are your expectations?

Here’s hoping that, by the end of the day tomorrow, we actually know what the point of all this is.

Related links:

The Curious Case of Playstation Home
SCEE Playstation Day 2K8 Roundup: Killzone 2, Home, Little Big Planet Dated
This Week's Releases: Too Many Damned Games!


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Roto13 said:

I'm going to download home but my expectations are low. It doesn't seem to have a lot of freedom with the avatar creation. I don't look like I fell out of a Roots billboard, so I probably won't be able to make a character that looks like me.

I'll judge it on how interesting the free stuff is, because I'm sure as hell not paying for anything.

December 10, 2008 8:33 PM

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

My understanding is that it's basically a way to meet people to add to your Friends list.  Except you don't have to meet them in real life, or kill them in battle first.

December 11, 2008 1:14 AM

in

Archives

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


Send tips to


Tags

VIDEO GAMES


partners