LOOT Steps Up
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
Like children in a grocery store asking for candy, there have been a lot of people ranting in the forums and elsewhere about being able to play music and watch movies in Home with their friends. Even more have wanted some form of music capability in Home, preferably using their own selections and the ability to watch a movie with their friends was also on their wish lists.
On one hand, this is quite understandable; there’s no question that other virtual realities offer a greater range of freedom. Licensing, of course, is the major hurdle. I suspect another hurdle may be the amount of available memory.
LOOT’s Entertainment On Demand (EOD) technology, available both publicly and privately, has dramatically helped to fulfill those demands. If you own the Hollywood Hills or Sunset Yacht personal spaces, you can sit with up to eleven friends and watch from a select group of movies. I did this the other night with a good friend of mine for the first time, and it was an interesting experience. To think that I was here in Michigan and she was in North Carolina, yet we were able to chat and have fun watching Advent Children together. Needless to say, this goes a long way towards deepening the social experience of Home.
Improving the social experience of Home — making it a deeper place to be, not just a broader place — is the long-term key to sustained increases in revenue. Not only will it drive sales of private estates, but it will help those of us who have it already finally find some use for those screens they have provided us. Granted, the system is not completely without flaws, though.
At times there were some issues with a bit of pixels appearing blurred, and also there was the problem of being totally synched with my friend’s viewing. There are a few commercials during the course of the viewing and every time this happened it took her longer to download than me. At that time we started watching different parts of the movie instead and never caught up. I hope this problem is solvable, as it would help when it comes to discussing what we are watching.
I then decided to go to the LOOT Space Theater and try out the public version of this, I must say I was impressed with it as a whole. I got to sit and choose which movie to watch, albeit alone. The quality was good — sound was as well, so no complaints here — and because you are essentially watching alone, you will find no synching problems, unless of course you go there with a friend and choose the same movie to watch.
LOOT has said in their announcement that the movie content will be changed monthly. This is good to know as quite a few of the available movies are older classics that many of us have already seen. Movies like A Few Good Men, Ghostbusters 2 and the like, while good, are still old and may not attract as many visitors as LOOT might like. Step Brothers, Passengers and Girl, Interrupted are some of the newer fare available.
In their news release about these new features, LOOT also spoke about another addition that will be released in December – music! Music has been one of the things that a lot of people have wanted in Home for a very long time. This new feature, called RadioIO, will be in the form of a huge selection of more than sixty radio stations to listen to. These stations will cover every possible genre from country to hip hop, as well as talk radio.
While this isn’t exactly what some people wanted — as most want to choose their own musical fare — it is a huge step in Home entertainment and should be welcomed with open arms by everyone.
There is also going to be another offering available through LOOT and its various screens. This is called UStream, and I went to their online site to check out what it was all about. I was absolutely astounded at what is going to be offered here. Everything from entertainment, to current news stories and gaming content to concerts and sports are all covered – much of it live feeds. The amount of available content here is staggering to say the least, and the fact that LOOT and Crackle have teamed up to bring it into our beloved PlayStation Home is a testament to not only their ingenuity but also their wanting to give us the kind of interactivity we have all been asking for.
Who knows where all of this will take us; the sky is the limit here, I think. Many people didn’t think that it was possible to bring these sorts of things to Home because of copyright issues, and in the sense of being able to play your own music they might be right. LOOT has apparently found a way to bring these kinds of offering to us and still stay within the laws governing it, and I applaud them for it. I can’t wait to try out the music and UStream when they become available to us; they will make a nice Christmas present to all of us here in Home.
Developing commodities which deepen the social experience of Home are a way to clearly demonstrate, through monetization, just how lucrative this strategy can be. The Sunset Yacht, in particular, might just be the most advanced private estate in Home right now; it offers controllable diurnal cycles as well as EOD, all in one tidy package. There’s certainly no question that from a value standpoint, LOOT delivers the goods, and this will hopefully be reflected in their sales numbers. But that, of course, is up to us.
- Movies to watch with friends!
- Music in personal spaces finally coming to Home!
- The end to some of the griping in forums.
- New movie content monthly.
- UStream content is coming soon.
- Syncing issues.
- Some pixelation.
- Needs some newer content.
December 3rd, 2011 by Burbie52 | 4 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
I’m very impressed with Loot at the moment too. And while I do enjoy films, I find that the idea of RadioIO has captured my attention more than Crackle.
This is not to say that the inclusion of movie streaming is diminished in any way – I think it’s a wonderful thing indeed. But when I’m on Home I usually have my laptop nearby listening to some talk radio, a CD/Mp3 or…well, RadioIO.
I’ve been a fan of RadioIo for some time, and to have it available in Home is not only uber-cool for a music fan, but also a lot more versatile and useful for Home in general. I just hope all the channels are available – especially the Prog Rock channel, which is my favorite on RadioIo’s rather large list of stations.
These video and audio offerings may be the best thing to hit Home since…well, they may just be the best thing to ever hit Home. Nice article outlining it all, Burbie. And big pats on the back to Loot!
http://www.radioio.com/2011/11/radioio-joins-virtual-world-in-loot%E2%84%A2-entertainment-on-demand-eod-system/
I remember people asking for videos they could watch in their apartments with friends and now we have it. Maybe it’s not exactly what all people want but it’s surely close. I think it’s great.
And music? I read in this article by Burbie52 about RadioIO which I looked up and it seems like Pandora Radio. It does not have out own music choices from out hard drive or specific songs we choose however it does have a good selection of styles from different eras.
RadioIO
This experiment called Home is taking interesting twists and turns.
forgot this CON , it only works for the US , Canadians can’t watch the moveie or recieve the gifts so thats a big con out weighs some of the pro’s
For those who didn’t read this, I’ll repost it again (from GlassWalls):
“This first phase is US only for now.”
While it’s only in the US, doesn’t mean it’ll exclude everyone else forever.
And for further clarification from someone who has a bit of experience in the industry:
http://community.us.playstation.com/message/36462415?tstart=30#36462415