PlayStation Home Delayed Until Spring 2008
By Chris on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 12:17 PM PST In Sony, Sony
Everyone’s favorite MySpace-meets-Second Life online network, PlayStation Home, has been delayed until next spring. At Sony’s TGS keynote, Kaz Hirai apologized for the delay of Home, which is still currently in a closed beta.
“I’m sorry about the delay, but since we want this to be a worldwide service — our territories all have their own wishes for it — it’s taking a bit longer for us to develop. We want Home to be satisfactory to all types of users around the world, so we decided to delay it,” said Hirai.
Fair enough, but the longer Home takes to establish itself, the harder it’s going to be to give Xbox Live a real challenger.
via 1UP
“the longer Home takes to establish itself, the harder it’s going to be to give Xbox Live a real challenger.”
In what way? Do you mean in popularity or just a better product? I’m pretty sure there will be more people playing online next year on the PS3 than the 360 with or without Home purely because its free. In a couple of years I’m expecting the amount of Home users to absolutely dwarf Xbox Live.
I’m not suggesting for one second that Home will be better for so called ‘1337′ gamers but a lot of people seem to be forgetting that although they are extremely vocal they probably make up less than 1% of the potential market. The simple fact is online gaming with Home will appeal more to normal everyday people than Xbox Live because it looks more interesting and most importantly it’s free.
What? Are you saying something is being delayed on the Delaystation 3
@Norbit: You make a valid point my friend. The casual gaming market is slowly starting to boom, and I believe Playstation Home is going to appeal to the casual market as well as the hardcore. Right now Xbox Live seems too involved and confusing to casual gamers. With Home, you simply log into the program and you are walking around, interacting with other people online.
And as you said, the price tag is just right. Casual players won’t feel so intimidated by Home because if they don’t like it, they don’t have to worry about paying $50/yr. Trust me when I say once you sign up a credit card to Xbox Live, it’s a bitch for them to stop charging you.