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[GDC]Real nice news from Sony

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First, Playstation Home has been unveiled and it seems like a Second Life clone without all the shit about having to be rich in real life to get an estate and everything.

Of course, the Sony Store will be there to provide special item against money, but it's not bound to be as crazy as what I've heard about Second Life.

The system seems to aggregate a lot of nice features, but I don't see one of them really standing out, apart from the fact that you're going to be able to make other people listening to your music and (maybe) movies that are on your hard drive.

That and the bloom is fucking annoying... plus, stupid people are going to yell because it's potentially a repair for pedophile that can take the honorable appearance of Margaret Thatcher and live in a house made out of candy and trophies from LocoRoco

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Second, and a bit more exciting, is LittleBigPlanet by the guys behind of Rag Doll Kung Fu and, I think, the 'The Room' demo presented by Molyneux at the GDC in 2005. Overall, it's like online puzzle games but for the multiplayer platformer genre: you construct your levels that involve physics puzzle, share them online and people can play them and rate them. The game looks gorgeous with a design that recall Rare, but like Rag Doll Kung Fu, I'm not sure it's going to keep an audience on the long run.

littlebigplanet_gdc.jpg

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The system seems to aggregate a lot of nice features, but I don't see one of them really standing out, apart from the fact that you're going to be able to make other people listening to your music and (maybe) movies that are on your hard drive.

But the question remains. Can you send giant pink floating penises to crash other peoples' parties? Cause if you can't, then it's nothing like Second Life. It looks pretty cool as a standalone chat thing, I guess. One that will no doubt be plastered with ads. I just don't know how well it'll integrate with games.

One of the things I read/listened to is that you'll be able to invite your friends to your room and then launch into a multiplayer game together... which seems obtuse to me. As long as there are non-3D-chat options for some of the things they are doing (like joining/inviting friends into games -- an XBL standard feature) then I'd imagine it'd get annoying for people that actually want to play games.

LittleBigPlanet looks awesome though.

And you didn't mention the new Killzone footage! :blink:

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The Playstation Home thing looks great. And what I like about it as well is that despite simply being a mash together of existing ideas (Second Life/Animal Crossing, Miis/The Sims, Achievements), it still smacks of genuine ambition on Sony's part. I have a lot of respect for that. It seems like a great gauntlet to throw down at Nintendo and Microsoft's feet, and I'm really excited to see how they respond in the coming year.

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Finally, some PS3 news that is absolutely positive. It looks great. I think it's a good idea. If they nail the execution, of course. But it looks to be something really special. About time. But I'm not going to spoil this party by complaints. Good stuff.

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Little Big Planet looks great, but I don't want to see the words "Little Big" unless they're followed by "Adventure" and "3".

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Home sounds really great, if you are into social networking etc. I'm not though. But it's still a really nice concept.

However, I think Sony needs to present some GAMES for PS3. I really want PS3 to be good, I have no reason for wanting it to fail, and the one thing it can do to make me buy one over an xbox 360 right now is present some games i want to play... not racers, action fps or fucking tits games, i want some shadow of the colossus or some gitaroo man.. some kind of Rez or anything to make it stand apart. It could happen. what.. don't look at me like that.

Little big physics barrys mod online thing isn't cutting it right now dudes.

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I agree with Spaff, but I wonder if the GDC is the place to do this ... I mean, it's primarly a place for developers to meet, right ?

So I guess it's not that far fetched to say that Sony, by presenting trendy projects like a social network application and a cute non-violent multiplayer game, is trying to get the developers' sympathy back rather than the consumers'.

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Oh totally true. GDC is not the place to announce games etc.

still.... that one quote about "being so glad you are a ps3 ownder come GDC" or whatever, is total shit.

the little big planet thing looks fun, but its not £415 of fun.

it's like £15 of fun at best.

But yeah, for once some generally positive hype for ps3 is nice to see. Come on guys, do better.

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Man I'm so glad other people feel the same. I had to argue at work today with people who all claimed it was all absolute bullshit.

I think people tend to automatically put anti-sony blinkers on these days...

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Looks like an interesting little gimmick to me, but like Spaff, I'm not really into social networking. I was really hoping there'd be more of a draw to their big PS3 announcement. Playstation Home just looks to me like a pleasant distraction when you don't have any games to play. In fairness though, that's really all that I've used the Mii creator for as well. I'd rather have something to play than something to distract me from the fact that I've got nothing worth playing. Not to be too negative, I really like this news and I'm happy that Sony seems to be coming out of their slump. Good job, Sony. Now let's have some more. You're one step closer to convincing me the PS3 will be worth it one day, but there're a lot of steps left to go.

Oh, and I'll chime in with the "LittleBigPlanet looks fucking gorgeous" crowd, too.

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The Media Molecule guys are awesome, can't wait to see more of their new work.

Hmm, second life with a decent renderer and without the sex is an interesting proposition. Back in the day, I knew a bunch of UT clans that got bored with UT99 and spent half their time just hanging out and chatting on severs.

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At least, if it works out as well as it sounds, they may very well have outdone Xbox Live. And offer it for free. MS suddenly has no big advantages if it turns out like that.

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Okay, so LittleBigPlanet looked pretty (a piece of shit looks pretty if you blur it enough), but what is it? It looked like a platformer without enemies or health, but with cool, physics based obstacles and four-player co-op. So:

1. Are there ordinary levels, like SMB, with varied obstacles and some sort of linear progression, or do people just fill a level with prefabs, set a start and a finish point and upload them to the webs?

2. Is there a point to being four people at a time? I don't think I noticed any advantage to being four players, other than that it's fun to play coop.

3. Is this a coop platformer with physics or have I misunderstood some fundamental concept regarding this game?

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I think Home is incredibly ambitious. A lot of questions remain for me (like max number of users) but if you see companies setting up shop in second life, I think this is only going to get better. The question to me though is if Sony is going to make the whole system open enough so it can flourish. I sincerely think that something like this IS going to be a factor especially because there is the chance of increasing ease of use with good controls on this. So yey, I am happy and will be even happier once I can actually use it on my Playstation. What excites me the most is to have a WingCommander/X-Wing -esque trophy room!

Also imagine games like GTA or the next ElderScrolls allowing you to use the same character. And performance within games granting you abilities in home... the possibilities seem endless... but that obviously means the chances for Sony to fuck this one up are huge too... we'll see

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Okay, so LittleBigPlanet looked pretty (a piece of shit looks pretty if you blur it enough), but what is it? It looked like a platformer without enemies or health, but with cool, physics based obstacles and four-player co-op. So:

1.

2.

3.

I'm guessing you just watched a "gameplay" run through. Watch the whole demonstration:

http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2007/03/little_big_plan.html

:yep:

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LittleBigPlanet was completely amazing. It got a long applause at the end.

The SecondLife esque thing was a good presentation for Sony, and shows they're doing interesting stuff, but I don't think it's going to work at all for various reasons (you have to boot it up like it's a seperate game, chat is limited for those without a keyboard, and the whole 3D world is a super awkward interface for doing simple things like watch a video clip).

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Yeah, Sony really should have asked themselves "What happened to VRML?" at some point. 3D is great for some things, but it's a really sucky way to organise information. 80's visions of cyberspace didn't happen because we tried them and they suck.

I wonder how they'll handle adult content? Will people cyber? I doubt it will enable users to any degree like second life, but judging by the screenshots and videos, PSHome is looking like an ideal place for hipsterotica ;)

Using a virtual PSP for the interface looks a tad desperate too.

I'm not as cynical about this as I sound. Honest!

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Well, the usability of 3D Interface is one of the most under-researched field of HCI even though everyone agrees it's the future. So, it's not that it doesn't work, it's that it wasn't researched properly and efficient paradigms have yet to arise.

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s (1. you have to boot it up like it's a seperate game, 2. chat is limited for those without a keyboard, and the whole 3D world is a super awkward interface for doing simple things like watch a video clip).

1. You don't have to use a disc, that's for sure. I think they already said it's accessible from the menu.

2. No it's not. You can use a built-in software keyboard (is that what it's called?), connect a USB keyboard, or using a wireless headset.

3. I'm pretty sure they're going to implement shortcuts accessible from a menu - and if not, at least have fast-travels like in Oblivion. And can't you already watch video-clips the normal way on a PS3? If so, why would that change? It's probably just an alternative to the more traditional method, plus added stuff.

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Everyone agrees it's the future?

Well, at least most of the experts say it's where interfaces are going : they don't pretend it's going to replace 2D interface in every cases, they just say that it's going to be the next field of experimentation for a bunch of researches related to usability and user centered interaction... and that their result will provide guidelines for the proper use of 3D interface.

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Yeah, Sony really should have asked themselves "What happened to VRML?" at some point. 3D is great for some things, but it's a really sucky way to organise information. 80's visions of cyberspace didn't happen because we tried them and they suck.

Excuse the bluntness, but I think that's kinda myopic. The history of games everything is littered with great ideas that got abandoned because someone screwed up the execution on them once, and then everyone else went "oh it must've been the idea that sucked". I think it's great that they are giving the idea a second go, and I think it's a flawed comparison since the scope of execution has obviously changed so much since VRML.

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Man I'm so glad other people feel the same. I had to argue at work today with people who all claimed it was all absolute bullshit.

I think people tend to automatically put anti-sony blinkers on these days...

Being one of those miopic Sony-haters, the news of Sony home yesterday, did actually stop me in my tracks and go 'Well thats an interesting idea'.

If it works I think it is a great inclusion, Sony needed something like this so that they could people to turn away from all the negativity and go 'Oooooh'.

I know this post sounds sarcastic, but it isn't meant to be.

The only two things that bother me, the already mentioned intuitiveness of it (ie: If I want to jump in find out which of my friends is online and join in a game how easy is that going to be?). And the cost... the initial package is free, but Phil Harrison has already made no attempts to tell people that to get more you don't have to pay more, and rather play more.

Being a sucker for achievements, the idea of trophies appeals to my ego.

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Ho-lee fuck.

I second that. Hadn't seen the whole thing yet, now I kinda want a PS3. When's this thing due to drop? A few more announcements like this and I may actually be willing to pay for one of the damn things. I'm hoping that this game'll be due sometime near when MGS4 arrives. If the two come together, I'm not sure I'll be able to mock Sony as much as I've been enjoying doing for the past months. Well played, Sony. Well played indeed.

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