PS3 Home Beta - now open
 

As of today, the beta for Home is now open:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/...ches-tomorrow/

I was in the closed beta, did some messing around, but it seems a little thin. Hopefully more content will give me reason to go in more. Yesterday in the closed beta, some of the previously empty stores actually had wares you could buy for no cost, including a beach home! BTW, the servers are getting slammed and I was not able to log on today.

I'm hoping that one of the things hinted at last year will come to fruition - being able to watch movies with others through Home. I'd like to be able to have people over to my spaces or the theater, pop a disc in my PS3 or access HDD content, and be able to share it with others. Even if you could only do it with Columbia films, it'd be something different.

maybe as of today but not as of now

http://www.community.eu.playstation....cending&page=1

They have alot of work to do in home , right now its not fun, the interface is lousy, the controls are slow and sluggish. camera doesnt feel natural. Nothing really too do. Feels like one big advertisement.

mission accomplished

But.. but.. according to everyone posting on the Sony forum, it is the best thing ever, leaves the 360 dashboard in the dust and is super awesome cool.

I swear they redesigned the locations a bit unless my eyes are messing with me.

it's the external views that look different to me.

Apparently, the PS3 Home forum is getting spammed with pranksters claiming that they've downloaded Home just to get everyone's underwear in a knot. :lol:

Decided to log in to check it out. Looks like it's live -- downloading now. :up:

yep live now
77 MB

I gave this a shot. But things went bad when I went into the city and that fox Redd sold me a forged painting.

Is this a system update or is it in the playstation store?

Neither, actually. With your PS3 hooked online, the option just appears under the PSN option.

I don't know if I feel like dealing with this today. :lol: The servers are swamped.

Yeah I'm digging the music in the Uncharted bar.

how the hell am I supposed to dance with all these network errors, damn you Sony, damn you

I think this mainly appeals to the teenage crowd. They cant buy a real house so all their friends can come hang at a virtual home instead.

not many adults can buy a home these days either

Yeah, the C-931 error is just about enough to kill the little bit of interest I had in Home today. :down:

Ditto!

Awesome job!

once again these major corportations continue to prove how inept they are
we can put a person on the moon but I can't log into Sony's Home program

how long before they are up on Capitol Hill asking for a bail out

I was finally able to get in. Set up my avatar, my apartment, and downloaded all the various locations.

It needs a ton more content before it becomes more than a way to waste a few minutes.

Plus, that would help avoid having so many avatars look the same. :lol:

I just get a "network error - c-931" everytime I try to connect. WTF?? What a waste

Anyone here that was already in the closed beta? I'm wondering if the free goodies for the closed beta are still available or if they disappeared. I thought the announcement said that tonight would be the last night to get them. I'm not with my PS3 at the moment so am unable to check.

I got all the free stuff they were offering in the closed beta yesterday, not a whole lot of stuff some furniture etc.

I bet everyone is having fun waiting in line to play games in home huh?

This is exactly my impression (except the bit about it being an ad) every time I have read about or seen screenshots from "Home" :lol:. I still just don't get the point of it :/.

Just found out... if you didn't get the free stuff by yesterday, you can't get it anymore. Shame I missed out on the free version of the $5 summer house.

Okay, Home is kind of bizarre. After setting up my dude and walking to the bowling alley, I was met with an onslaught of chattering guys in what may be Home's first cyber ... "gang"? :lol: Jesus.

How do you download Home? I searched all over the Playstation store, and all I found under "Home" was the Theme and the Trailer.

Once you connect online it will be in your XMB right above the icon for The Playstation Store.

God, Home is just awful. It really is just one big ad -- one that loads incredibly slowly. I can't think of anything, anything that I actually like about it. Maybe that will change, but it just seems like an excuse to try to get people to buy more worthless downloadable extras. Stop it Sony, just stop! You should be grateful at this point for any gamers who actually patronize your system and instead you're nickle &diming them to friggin death.

I don't really see the point of it. Then again, I find the whole idea of "Second Life" pretty dumb too...

Home: Neat concept, but fails in execution. The time I spent in it I was hit with all kinds of ads for products, you have to pay for anything beyond the basics. Tons of annoying people shouting in to mics and typing offensive texts. And if a female figure happened to walk by, "she" would be swarmed by all kinds of horny, annoying males.

I agree with everything you just said. Although I wasn't as annoyed with all the talking/texts.

Is there a profanity setting somewhere that I can turn off? People kept saying "****o!" over and over and it took me forever to figure out that the game was censoring the "hell" part of "hello".

:lol: I logged in once and have no desire to visit ever again.

Yep. Tested it, interacted with the environment, failed to be impressed with the prospects of game networking, and mainly just aggravated by the whole experience. The unfiltered microphone sounds was a huge mistake, as hearing all the teenagers jabber along with their buds was a real drag. What I DID like, however, was the game pavilion -- though apparently my reflexes weren't quick enough to get in a game of bowling or pool. I did do some arcade gaming with Ice Breakers (read: Arkanoid), which was actually fun.

I also really like the idea of a congenial "home theater" space where you can get together with friends, run one person's Blu-ray disc, and watch the film together -- even, maybe, synced up with microphones to hear reactions to the film playing. If they make that kind of a thing an option where I could invite some people from here over to my "space" to watch a movie, then that'd be neat too. However, going into that theater and having to deal with people dancing, chatting, and intentionally blocking the screen for kicks and giggles gets aggravating a lot faster than going to the actual theater.

Still, being someone who doesn't get the concept of Second Life, the entire separation from reality get-up that they've created -- not to mention the "pay to play" Sims II sort of dynamic with individual pieces for clothing, creation of clubs ($5, really?), etc. -- is just a let down, though it'll surely appeal to teenagers with their parents' credit cards and closet-minded twenty-somethings. For those older who just want to simply interact with others without coughing up an exuberant level of their hard-earned cash to pretty up their avatar, it's just not worth investing the time.

Will be uninstalling later today. Not worth the hard drive space, either. :lol:

that's GREAT

Wow...if that is the reaction here, how is this playing to the PS fanboys on their forums?

Yeah.. the $5 charge for clubs was a big head scratch move.. In addition, it states that in the future, there will be a monthly fee to run a club.

Sony really does think that people are going to buy up everything they offer in home.

I grew tired yesterday at all the racist, homophobic and just general annoying text and audio stuff I saw/heard. couple that with the fanboys saying this is the best thing ever and that Microsoft has nothing on Sony now and that Sony will crush them, made me retreat to my virtual home and ponder its existence.

Again, neat in concept, fails in execution.

At the end of the day, people own a PS3 to play games or watch blu-ray movies. If they want to play some sims virtual life adventure, they'd own and/or already be playing it on the PC.

I can't even get Home to load. It hangs up on the second screen telling me not to shut off the PS3 when the HD icon is up.

Same here. I tried Home for a bit last night and uninstalled it afterwards because it's just a glorified (and obnoxious) chat room that looks to eventually be charging for every little thing... Fifty cents here, a dollar there. So my guy can have a fancy shirt while firing off "IDK MY BFF JILL?" Nah, I'll pass. If/when there's some exclusive, interesting gaming content I might be convinced to keep it around, but since I don't bother with multiplayer stuff and thus don't need a clunky way of setting up games, it's all pretty dumb to me.

I was in the closed beta and managed to fire up Home one time during those couple of months. It was just pointless, so I never had the urge to go back. I tried it again last night and it hasn't really changed much at all. I think Sony is lacking a clear vision on what Home should be and why a gamer would have any reason or desire to use it. I really think they're on the wrong track with this.