Speaking with UK-based website CVG, PlayStation Home's European service manager Dan Hill claims that the recently released beta has the potential to become a system-seller, once the product and its offerings evolve.
As it currently stands, Home is little more than a venue to toggle scripted emotes, play mini games, chat with strangers, and pay real money for the dubious honor of wearing digital advertisements for clothing companies. But Hill believes that once Home has grown, and its vision becomes fully realized, PlayStation 3 owners will be a part of a unique gaming experience.
I'm inclined to agree.
Science fiction has often hearkened to the fully realized 3-D Internet of the future. Of course, typing a URL into a browser is far more efficient than "walking" to a web page; But from a gaming perspective, with 3D interactions being all but second nature to us, the marriage of digital spaces and the web just makes sense.
Sony has a unique opportunity here, to lead the way into a future where our established internet-identities mean more than a name tied to a score or list of achievements. While it's currently little more than a digital storefront, Home is poised to redefine matchmaking by allowing immediate, social interactions to have a role in shaping our multi-player gaming experience.
Consider the following (idealized) Home scenario: You walk over to the Far Cry room to chat, when someone along the way recognizes your avatar from a recent WipeOut HD tournament, and challenges you to a few more races. Afterwards, you both head over to the PixelJunk pub, grab a few friends who are loitering there, and play some Resistance 2 Co-op – all seamlessly integrated through Home, and its interface.
There is no fundamental difference between that scenario, and just picking the multiplayer option in a few games or sending messages. In fact, sending messages would probably be a lot faster. But Home has established a framework for organic social interactions, the likes of which haven't really been realized before.
Think about playing games as a kid. Most of us didn't stand around in the Basketball or Hide-And-Seek lobby, waiting for a game to start. We had conversations, voted on what we wanted to do, and played numerous games, alternating between them on a whim. We made new friends and new enemies based on those conversations, and gravitated towards like minded people, sampling some of their hobbies and playing the games they played.
An Xbox Live Gamertag or PlayStation ID allows you to send messages, establish friendships, and schedule times to play other games, but there's a level of connection that's missing there.
It's the reason that Miis and Avatars seem so out of place – they're tied to your username, but they don't really serve any purpose, beyond serving as your avatar in a few games. As for usernames themselves, while they provide a point-of-contact and help establish an identity, a fully-realized 3-D avatar is a desirable, natural progression – consider the transition from MUDs to graphical MMOs. Isn't seeing a Gnome Warlock in awesome gear generally preferable to lines of text describing it all?
Of course, Sony went and left out that all important "gaming" aspect – and no, pool and bowling don't count. If they figure out how to take full advantage of integrating the PlayStation 3's library and a living world, and spend a little less time trying to monetize their experiment, Home (or something like it) could feasibly replace traditional matchmaking services.
Whether or not that sells systems will be entirely up to how gamers react to a decidedly different way to meet up and play.
Sony: 'Home Will Be A System Seller' [CVG]
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