gaming is coming home

aka 'We Have a Winner'

Sony's presentation at GDC last week has changed the way people think about the PS3 - a not-inconsiderable achievement given the general consensus in the gaming press that the PS3 would be the big loser in the current console generation. The demonstration shown at GDC is here:

The Sony presentation had two compelling elements: the demonstration of a new, fully customisable 3D platform game called LittleBigPlanet; and, of more interest to this blog, the announcement of Home. Home is a free, 3D virtual world, downloadable through the Playstation Online store and useable through the PS3 (but with the intention that it's functionality be offered through mobile phones and the PSP at a later date).

It really does look like the killer application for the PS3 - it certainly looks like a Second Life killer: a 3D world with high quality graphics, low latency and easy to use interface (three features that SL is notorious for not providing), with the added benefit that, as a space mediated by a giant media conglomerate, you won't need to worry about logging on and finding people exploring their polymorphous sexualities in your virtual living room. Of course, to a certain community of users, this is an in-built limitation of Home; for the vast majority of users and potential users, this is a feature. Home is also promising a fairly sophisticated level of customisation for avatars: again, not as free as SL's avatar customisation, but vastly more user friendly; and all rendered into smooth 3D by the PS3's multiple processors.

Avatar interaction is facilitated by a range of pre-scripted responses and actions - again, not nearly as flexible as a PC-based virtual world (and not likely to be ameliorated significantly by the virtual keyboard): the demo version shows a wide range of generic responses; whether they will be sufficient to build meaningful discourse, whether the virtual keyboard will suffice, or indeed whether this is the end of text-based communities and the start of persistent, voice-chat based communities, is yet to be determined.

Finally, the other major limitation of virtual worlds - the 'what do i do now?' problem - is solved: Home users can form pick up groups and go from the virtual world straight into PS3 games. Sony have outlined a free (sell any Linden Labs stock asap) 3D virtual world with a pre-defined, persistent community, high quality graphics and approachable interface.

There is always the possibility that Home will not do in practice what it is promising in beta, and that Sony will manage to make as big a mess of this as they (are commonly understood to) have done with the PS3 launch - but it's hard to see. Home is promising all the benefits of virtual worlds without the seediness; all the customisation and individualisation of the Mii, and all the persistence across games of Xbox Live. The current generation of consoles appears to have found it's killer app - and it's only available on the PS3.

more links, from Kotaku:
More Details on the Playstation Home
PS Home Information Overload