Home Games on the Vita?
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
No, I’m not talking about Home itself on the Vita; that ain’t gonna happen. Rather, I’m thinking the other way around: translating Home games out of Home and onto a new PlayStation platform.
Look, you don’t have to be Edgar Cayce to figure out that Home isn’t the shining star of the PlayStation pantheon. Nor am I going to tell Sony what to do in this article. Rather, I’m looking at it from the standpoint of all the time and money some of these third-party developers have put into their Home games: what if they could be translated onto the Vita?
This isn’t necessarily a crazy concept. After a fashion, it’s already happened in the other direction: Hellfire’s Novus Prime was originally designed as a PSN title before it was turned into a Home megahit, introducing multiplayer co-op to Home before core update 1.5 even brought multiplayer APIs to the core client. So why not investigate reworking Home games for the Vita?
The hardcore social users reading this will undoubtedly dislike this argument, because games are not the beating heart of Home, and thus Home itself does not translate out of the PS3 and into the Vita. But the fact remains that the Vita is struggling and lacking for content, and some of Home’s games could translate over quite well.
Let’s use SodiumOne as an example. You’re telling me Lockwood’s classic megahit wouldn’t sell for a few bucks on the Vita? Come to think of it, singleplayer Sodium2 would likely do just as well, too. As would Novus Prime. And Scribble Shooter. And a whole bunch of other Home games.
Granted, not every Home game would translate well to the Vita. But let’s face it: the Vita’s a new platform that Sony dumped a ton of money into, and it’s desperate for content. Meanwhile, over in Home, you’ve got a bunch of third-party developers who built games that could probably translate fairly well over to the Vita. Sony gets an infusion of content, developers make some additional money, Home users finally have a reason to buy the damn thing, and perhaps some of the Vita’s audience, through these games, gains a reason to discover Home.
At some point, Sony has to seriously examine how to start migrating Home’s audience out of the walled garden and back into the larger PlayStation world. Whether they decide to do anything to perpetuate Home (or something like it) with the next console generation, or they decide to simply stop supporting Home at some point down the road, there has to be a bridge for its core users to cross, rather than simply feeling like they were neglected off in some corner — or, worse, abandoned altogether.
Here today, gone to Vita.
And the third-party developers? This is arguably even more important for them to consider. Some of them have tied a lot of their fortunes to Home. This isn’t true in every case, obviously, but it’s something to be mindful of. No, I’m not suggesting that developers publicly pivot completely out of Home in wholesale pursuit of the Vita, as Bigyama did earlier this year (for understandable reasons), but it’s pretty hard to ignore a snazzy new PlayStation platform that’s hungrily looking for content.
You could contend that Home games just wouldn’t stack up well against mainstream Vita titles. And that’s true. But who says they have to be the same price? If SodiumOne was available on the Vita for, say, five bucks, it’d be worth it to me to pay that and have portable Sodium to enjoy. I might just go out and buy a Vita at that point — because software sells hardware, not the other way around.
Long after Home is gone, its core social experience will live on in the hearts and minds of the people who inhabited this virtual world; the connections and friendships we made will continue to thrive.
The games, however, are no less valuable. They too should be given a chance to live on. And I’m sorry, but the PS4 isn’t it; we’re on the verge of 4K technology, with a console that’s going to be hyped up to the point where people think it delivers Rambo Bar Refaeli NFL Star Wars directly to your brain, and Home games are going to look worse than “quaint” by comparison. But on the Vita…they might have a second lease on life. And everyone would benefit from it.
November 16th, 2012 by NorseGamer | 3 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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You know what I’m gonna say, dont you? Home’s games just ain’t strong enough to stand on their own. S1 and S2 may be, and Tycoon could. But most rely on the insatiable appetite of rewards that they bring the main Home users as validation, rather than good old fashioned game-play. I ain’t peein’ on your fire here though Norse, its a sound idea to have Home content on the Vita.
I do think that Home should be integrated into the Vita some how, but it’s that somehow that’s the problem. To me, I think it should just be a case of having an app that allows you to properly browse and buy Home items directly from the Vita, so you can pick up your new stuff on arrival from a PS3. So if you’re at work when the new stuff comes in on a Wednesday instead of having to wait till after work/school/whatever, you can start buying your new toys during your break! It might be lucrative for Sony, and handy for us!
An improved, more detailed search system could be implemented for items, I’m sure the Vita could handle the wardrobe previews for clothing items too. They could gather all the little showcase videos in one neat little place as well, so they’d be advertising content that cant afford to do so within Home itself maybe. It could be a pretty strong marketing tool for Home I think. I’m sure you could parcel off Home arcades while you’re at it, like that Game About Bouncing, Super Hero Mad House etc.
Oh and Norse; Feels good man, thanks for the chance. : )
I like the idea of people having a way to buy the new stuff in Home from a Vita, that would be good marketing and a way to promote Home too. I will probably never get a Vita, but that is because I have never gotten into handhelds at all since they were conceived. The screen is too small for my tastes,even though they have made them larger now. I don’t use my phone for the internet or gaming for the same reason.
I think some games would translate well enough though, like Bounce and Scribble Shooter, and perhaps Sodium one and two. They would have to have that low price, and it might attract new users as Norse mentioned. Interesting read Norse, I think you may be onto something.
OMG I would be going out to buy one right away if Novus Prime was on the Vita. I could be walking around the store while smashing Bots!! That would be cool.