Home, and the PlayStation Vita
by AlacrityFitz, HSM guest contributor
So here we are again, and those of us familiar with the Home suggestion forum have seen the fur start to fly. But lets look at history before we start repeating it.
Back at TGS 2009, Sony announced they were developing ROOM (the “o’s” were an infinity symbol) for the PSP. It was touted as a social networking virtual space where players could invite each other in for chat sessions. It featured full avatars that could be customized, and personal spaces called “my room” which users could decorate as wanted.
All of this sounding familiar?
At this point, the story diverges from Home. Avatars (shown in the few images one can still find floating around) appear cartoony, decidely flat, and suspisouly similar to Code Lyoko avatars. Big heads, bigger hair styles and tiny rail-thin bodies in flat envoriments. Less a mini-Home port and more cut-out paper dolls one might find in Walmart.
After some more work after TGS, Sony issued invites to a select group of players for a closed beta in September of that year. For months this closed beta went on, with little info leaking out to the general public. From September 2009 to April 2010, beta testers and developers (seemingly) worked on improving the base functionality and making it ready for at least an open-beta release.
In the end — and, weirdly, on tax day (April 15th) here in the United States — word leaked out the plug had been pulled. Sony thanked the testers and closed the door on Room. Not a lot said on why, or how testing went, or what problem or business concerns went into feeding Room into the IP BugZapper (thanks to gucomics forever for introducing us to the zapper). It went out with a whimper after arriving by the beck door and hiding in a closet for eight months.
Now it is the beginning of 2012, and a few (numbers aren’t out as of this writing) of us have gotten our Vita. Remote Play, another legacy feature from the PSP that was highly touted and little implemented, is back with the new handheld and many Home users did (whether they admit it or not) log into their PS3 and tried to launch Home only to meet the dreaded “This content not supported” message.
I am sure we all heard the collective gnashing of teeth in Home for the last week or more. Threads in the forums, ideas in Blog.Share, conversations in Home and I am sure smoke signal and carrier pigeon. All asking for one thing: if at all technologically possible, bring us Home to the Vita.
The arguments, both logical and emotional, tend to follow the following themes:
1) With the bigger processor, increase in RAM and larger memory sticks, Home could probably run on this handheld power house.
2) Cross-platform support?
3) The only reason not to do it is because they realy don’t care about: me, Home users, Vita users, Sony customers, baby seals, or melting polar caps. Pick one.
Chances are good that these requests, suggestions, and demands will continue for the forseable unless either Home appears on the Vita, or Sony declares via PR statement that it ain’t gonna happen, no way, not ever, stop asking.
So let’s get real about this. Can the Vita handle running Home? Is there really a call for Home beyond the vocal elements of the Home community? If not the full Home, then maybe a different version of Room?
The hurdles for any application like Home are tiered. Storage for the Home spaces and clothing needs to be addressed. Bandwidth needs for wifi and 3G need to be looked at. Battery draw for the increased load of graphics and online usage. Should Home for the Vita be remote play only, or a native app on the handheld. Decide what features need to be ported and what can be ignored for user interest, power and load time needs, and usability on the smaller Vita screen.
That is quite a laundry list of stumbling blocks, and it becomes easier to see why the first attempt fell flat. But the effort seems, to me, to be worth it. Having seen enough people requesting it and myself wanting to see this move forward, Sony would be doing itself a service to at least investigate the possibility to get it working on the new handheld, assuming it wasn’t already investigated.
I would perhaps be remiss if I didn’t share what I actually want to see. Here it is, with reasons and explanations (a.k.a. excuses and lies).
The Vita Home should be a free app for the Vita. Keeping the bulk of the data on the machine would save the need of lots of bandwidth being drained and lowering the battery draw as your avatar changed spaces. With up to 32GB memory sticks, a fully realized Home port could be stored on a single stick. Storing most of the textures, space descriptions and clothing on the Vita, you also speed up the process of loadng.
In the Vita port, more attention should be placed on the private spaces. Public spaces have too many people and random side events (interactions, sounds, companions and buble machines) to make loading them all possible or desirable. Minimalist public spaces for Vita users are enough for random encountering while the private spaces would see more use for linking up with friends.
The handheld Home would ideally not be a seprate thing from regular Home. If the Vita is going to get Home, it needs to be a part of its big brother. Users of Home have spent years building their presence, buying gear and spaces, and making friends. Giving them a new Home where they have to start from scratch and only able to talk to friends that have also purchased a Vita will kill the idea faster than anything. The Home “power users” are a huge driving force for it, and they will draw people into Vita:Home more than anything; making it hard for them to get started on the handheld will not help.
Finally, the central focus. Here I will probably lose anyone that might have agreed with me up to the point (all three of you). Vita:Home should be first and formost a support area for Home. Direct access to wardrobe and private spaces for redecorating. The smaller screen and the touch pad make the Vita the perfect digital assistant for any Home resident. The ability to make changes to my spaces and create new looks while out and about would be a great boon and make Home more enjoyable while I am on the PS3.
March 11th, 2012 by AlacrityFitz | 4 comments
AlacrityFitz is a guest contributor to HomeStation Magazine.
Very nice article! It was well thought out and gave a great argument for introducing at least parts of Home to the Vita. I will probably never buy a Vita myself, I have never owned a hand held in my life, the screens are too small for my liking, but this would be a good idea for those who do get them.
Welcome to HSM Alacrity! Well done.
Excellent article, and one that raises a very good question.
With the PS4 likely about two years away and some early buzz coming from developers about the next iteration of Home, where does the Vita fit into things? It would make sense for the PS4 to be Vita compatible, and I suspect Sony will make sure that happens to preserve the lifespan of the handheld.
This leads to the next question: What happens to Home on the PS4? The current version will need to be upgraded (maybe we’ll even get 1080p graphics), and there’s a sticky point of backwards compatibility to consider for current Home users. The ideal Home strategy would need to account for PS4 and PS3 users in the same spaces, so that everyone who can’t buy a PS4 on launch day isn’t left out, but we’ll see how that goes.
The long and short of it is that Home will need a new core to run on the PS4. That takes time and resources, which are likely better spent on developing the PS4 version of Home, which will last for at least seven years, than a Vita version of Home, which will need to be replaced in two years.
I think there is hope for the Vita users out there to see Home someday, but I think it’s going to be a long time coming.
I thought about the impending (Gods willing not until 2015 or so) PS4 release. That was why I said the Vita:Home should be a stand aside app. Remote play will see a lot of work /change over time and the PS4 will have its own brand new version of it. So Vita:Home needs to be spaced away from the permutations of its bigger sibling.
As a side app where residents can over see the personal clothing and winter chalet empire. Vita:home would be as much of a tool as it is an inroad to Home.
I stayed away from the financial concerns of Vita:Home for the most part because it felt like a digression, but here are some thoughts showing the fiscal upside for Sony.
The Vita app, which would be less grand spaces and more direct view, would be a perfect platform for activity announcements. Sales, events, new space mini tours (Camera fly throughs and such) could all be easily flashed to Vita:home via in space monitors or direct tap icons that the touch screens make easy to use, but are harder to target in the PS:Home interface. Release day would be a breeze for fashionistas, as they could jump to Wardrobe and tap and Whats New area of their closet and see all the new gear listed by store/location/gender/political relevance or whatever.
All of this would make selling easier, as well as buying. That makes the Vita the GO TO item for Home users looking to pick up gear while also giving them a tool to enjoy what they already have.
Sony has already spent a LOT on a service that was free for a long time, and now only is partially supported by micro transactions, so their willingness to drop more money into developing a large (this would be a serious time investment for Sony) add on for a second system has to be offset by the ability to recoup some of that investment.
HearItWow, You are right that with development on the PS4 and its version of Home will make Sony think twice before trying to attack the Vita:Home question, but I think this is the time for them to start. They rolled out Remote play with the PSP before they had half of it ready and used it as a beta test. I think in the long run Sony would be doing itself a favor starting out on it now and releasing it and testing it now, before the PS4 releases. Home has matured over the last few years, and become what we love, and I think Vita:Home would do well in the same development model.
Thanx for reading my ravings
ALacrityFitz
Really solid ideas, Alacrity. Having a map of new Home content would likely boost sales and enthusiasm, especially if the Vita had the Store preview functions, as well as some sort of function that showed the scale of furniture.
We’ve all had that “where the heck in the Mall is this thing?” moment, so that would be a win.
And since the Vita is linked to existing PSN accounts, it could actually be used for Home purchases. Get what you want on your Vita, and it’s waiting when you get home and log in.