I haven’t thought once about PlayStation Home since I played it the one and only time, but I’m sure other gamers are still having fun with it. No, really, someone plays it. I swear. Anyway, Sony’s US director for PlayStation Home, Jack Buser, spoke today at GDC in regards to Home’s future. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Busey announced Home will be getting three new social spaces per month in the future.
Here’s some more from Buser:
“Online games consoles have had the concept of the friends list for some time,” he said, splitting online friends into two groups – those you meet online, and those you know in real life. We noticed at Sony a problem with the friends list with the first group – you don’t really know them. We wanted a place, a neutral environment, where players could go and really get to know each other outside of the context of a particular game … If you look at some of our competition, they really struggle with the idea community, how to foster a community on their platform. Home is the true community for PlayStation 3.”
I love my PS3, but I can’t stand Home, so that last sentence kind of troubles me. On the other hand, I think I just have to accept that a lot of other people are relating to Home. Buser reports that 2.2 million users are in North America alone, and over 5 million worldwide. He also pushed for more developers to support Home game launching, saying “it’s going to seem like something’s missing if you don’t have it”. I can’t say I agree. Do you?
