Sony PS3 Home: Are you happy to pay for extras?
Filed under: Gaming, Sony Playstation 3 | By: Daniel
Posted on: December 14, 2008 | 35 Comments
It’s only been a few days since Sony PS3’s HOME was available to masses and errors are showing even before you get into the virtual world, although this is expected to some degree for a service in beta and the big interest in Home.
What makes Home even more accessible is the word “FREE”, not only is Playstation Home free but also is getting online with the PS3. This is very unlike Xbox 360’s Live where you have to pay to get online, which some people will not do.
When PS3 users complain that some extras in HOME have to be paid for we get a little confused, if you want your own private space like a club then you have to pay Sony a monthly fee. This seems fair enough as they give a lot more free than competitors and some money has to be made to pay for developing HOME.
Not everyone agrees here with some users saying “if you want to buy things for your own space you have to pay for them by the Playstation store which I think is stupid I thought it was a free service”.
Do you agree and would you pay for HOME extras?
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I have Verizon fios with a 50meg online connection. The issues I have faced with lag and ping should have been ironed out by XBoxLIVE already. It’s hard to pay for XBoxLIVE especially in this economy. PSN is much smoother for Free. Definitely a better deal.
” The issues I have faced with lag and ping should have been ironed out by XBoxLIVE already”
Most XBL game sessions are peer-to-peer, where lag is related to the connection of the person hosting the game. It’s not XBL causing the lag. Peer-to-peer gives the most flexibility for online gaming but has the potential for more lag, especially if you’re playing with gamers on the other side of the world. PSN favours dedicated servers more, which can give more reliable performance and less lag, but at the expense of flexibility and it’s often region restricted.
As for cost, well I doubt gamers who are willing to buy several games a year are really going to find it difficult to pay the price of one game per year for XBL, regardless of the current economic climate. It’s great PSN is free, but it still feels like it’s playing catch up to me, even with the release of Home.
Personally, I’m not a fan of Home, at least not yet. Right now it just seems like a cumbersome way of achieving something which could have been done in a much simpler, more direct and more accessable way years ago. But then, I’ve never been a fan of these kind of virtual worlds anyway, whether it’s Second Life or the Sims or similar.
However I will watch with interest to see how Home developes, and hopefully the time will come when I change my mind about it.
Who would pay to go stand in a closed off parking lot with nothing to do but stand there..as guys come up to you and push the dance button..
HOME is a dead space? People just standing there looking at a wall…
Ya see the good thing about Home is that, if the service doesn’t cater to your individual tastes, i.e. it’s a dead space, then you don’t have to use it. Some people will think it’s amazing while others are just gonna use it every so often when they’ve got an hour to kill.
I started laughing my head off when i started dancing and about 10 other people just waked over to me and started doin’ the same, i guess thats what it’s all about.
As for paying for extras, thats a difficult question to answer. While i agree that Sony will obviously need a way to make back the money they invested in developing Home and the PSN in general (exclusing advertisements within Home itself), and paying for extra items and clothing is a good way to acomplish this. They first need to ensure that they have sufficient things avaliable for free to choose from which I don’t think they have right now.
i have to say personnely i like it.it makes a big differance if ure friends are in there to.it does have potencial .
I think MS have the micro transactions with avatars absolutely nailed down.
For the forseeable future all avatar content will be 100% free.
Also, developers have been given the full avatar code to make clothes and accessories unlockable, which greatly enchances the “achievement” aspect of xbox live gaming.
I like that rather than just getting more points for an achievment, i’ll get a master chief helmet or COD army outfits.
XBL access is available from most online deliverers for £28pounds/$41dollars for 13 a months.
Thats £2 or $3 a month… a cost that is easily racked up in micro-transactions on ps home.
Anyone who actually wants to use home and have a decent experience will need to spend… so price wise it comes out as equal to, or more expensive than using xbox live…. So there is a clear choice. Do you want to pay for a decent and easy to use online experience that is head and shoulders above the competition (Xbox Live).. or do you prefer to walk around a virtual world adding virtual furniture to your virtual apartment.
“Do you want to pay for a decent and easy to use online experience that is head and shoulders above the competition (Xbox Live).. or do you prefer to walk around a virtual world adding virtual furniture to your virtual apartment.”
well, from what you just said, to be honest, i’ll stick with home. I’d rather meet up with my friends avatars, maybe have a bowling match, then launch a multiplay session on COD4 than go through tedious screens with an annoying 3D stickman staring back at me with dead eyes.
The whole point is, you don’t have to pay for home, it’s for everyone. If you just want to go on and meet up with mates, you don’t have to pay, however, if you are going to treat it like another game and you are desperate to update, you can. Its all up to the people. And yet again, with sony, its free online!
everyone has a good point but……… it all falls down to the players choice people everyone is diffrant and have there own ideas yes u have to pay for xbox live and ps3 is free xbox live has a wider choice of games there for a wider choice of online games i.e halo witch players do like to play so of course thay will pay for it home is a idea of a place for gamers to meet chat and have more to do than just play the games and as its free even better the custom stuff i.e night club^^ is a players choice not a nessersery part of home yes it is a free to play but you have to pay for add-ons but as somone said ^^ thay must have a way to support the service and having DLC it helps fund the free stuff if it was completly free it would take a long time to be able to fun anything free xbox live charge to play ad ps3 charge for add-ons but that said xbox do charge for some add-ons as well so to be fair moning about having to pay on the ps3 for extras is really pointless and it really is just up the players preferance well thanks for reading
see ya
People complain about both services, but at the end of the day, they havent played one or the other enough to get a full idea of what its capable of. Someone who constantly goes on at me about the fact I have a ps3 was stunned the other day when I said “How is the actual system crap? Not sony, but the PS3?” They both do what they’re supposed to do. Neither is better, neither is worse. Ps3 is more durable and reliable, with the whole Hi Def blu-ray capabilities, 360 has a pretty hardcore library of games (not including multi platform titles) and a decent online service. What I’m saying is, the net is full of petty people who just want to fight and argue with someone. Its the whole “my dad could kick your dads ass” argument from school, in console form. Its pointless, let’s just live with eachother peacefully, theres nothing wrong with healthy competition, but these forum wars are stupid, and I’m ashamed to say I have been dragged into them. But enough is enough. Personally, I think it would save a whole bunch of peoples time if Sony and Microsoft joined up and made a super console, with the best properties of both the 360 and the PS3. Goodnight world!
HOME is pretty cool. It’s like a visual Instant Messenger. The movie theater is cool but they need to add more previews.
I played the arcade machines in the bowling alley and received extra content for high scores.
The flying saucer game in the court yard looks nice graphically, but gets boring after several minutes.
Interacting with people from all over the world is the highlight of HOME. I spoke to someone from Egypt, Ireland, Ohio, Wyoming & Boston, all in the same hour. Pretty cool.