The Next PlayStation Home
by Godzprototype, HSM team writer
Being a consumer, and someone who enjoys Home with a lot of gamers, I have a wish in anticipation of the next console – the PS4.
I have found a lot of things written about what Home is, and what it is not. What people love, and tons on what they detest.
I have had the good fortune of being a part of a community of gamers that enjoys each other’s company outside of the games they play. So I would like to propose one perspective on what I think at least some Home users would like to see in the next generation of Home and it’s design.
How could the next PlayStation better serve the community they have built on the PS3? How could the PS4 capture Home users, and continue to provide new experiences above and beyond every game, and the gaming system itself? Is the redesign of Home the key to success?
The answer could be the redesign of Home as not part of the XMB, but being the XMB itself. That seems to be the general consensus. Meaning theoretically, when you turned on your PS4, you were in Home. Your Home. Deciding on whether you wanted to be in a single player, private, or a community shared server would be up to you in your network connections icon.
So in effect, the interface for the PS4 would be your personal space. Much like the themed XMB interfaces we buy to make our PS3 look cool, but the difference would be you could interact with your PS4 instead of jumping through so many hoops to get to that level of immersion.
Avatars would be similar to the icons and the themes we buy. I also think this would bring each developer that much closer to the system as a whole. In turn making them that much more important to the system as game developers involved in the creation of such a metaverse.
Now the tabs we already have on the XMB are as follows: Users, Settings, Photo, Music, Video, TV Video services, Game, Network, PlayStation Network, and Friends. Some of these tabs are necessary, some of them are not in a new interface that is completely immersive. Thus, making the process more streamlined (and more user friendly).
Combining Users under the Settings tab and calling it System Control with a very interesting icon in the room you enter could look like a computer set up somewhere in the space provided as your default space. The easiest way for me to describe what I am seeing is a spaceship. Obviously, developers could offer many different forms – or skins – of this interface. This is just the easiest for me to describe. You enter on the bridge. Terminals and controls – virtual “touchscreens” everywhere. Much like the LOOT Space Apartment.
While I understand that what I am about to suggest will undoubtedly disturb people, for growth and legal reasons I have to suggest this anyway. The Photo tab should be based on what country a user is in, and depending on that country, allows such a function. So you would either have to buy the photo frames developers made for your personal space, or you just didn’t have the ability.
This next suggestion hurts, even for me. So I will just make it and bite the bullet. The Music and Video/Video services tab should be combined into either a video screen/HDTV item or a radio in the room. Countries that these services are available in obviously would have more that could be done with these items. While I realize that people want their own music and or videos in the room, at this point we know that’s not going to happen. So the services available to us through the PlayStation Network will have to suffice. They are excellent services. Provided you and your friend rent the same movie you may like to watch together. This should be very possible to do. All this, accessible immediately upon turning your system on.
The Game tab should be a special one. Maybe a floating controller in the room. When you accessed it, out popped every game you have on your system all around you. The tiny description of of each one with their own icon. You and your friends set parameters for before you transitioned into the game. Or like entering a space specifically designed for the game itself. Only problem with working like that is when the game is gone, support drops and the space is just sitting on the network hogging bandwidth. Buying the space or bundling it with the game itself, public and private, should offer some more incentive to developers for promotion of there own games. Add items to a user’s inventory, based on like we do now.
The Network and PlayStation Network tab should be one icon that opened another type of control panel. You could use the PlayStation Network icon for this in this space. Again, out would pop settings and options for those function. The PlayStation Store could be the first of the things that popped out of that icon.
The Friends list should be special too. Instead of it being a list. You would have a screen you could walk over to and see on a graphic map where your friends were. This map should be interactive obviously. Out of game comms should be much like it is with the PS3, with the option to see your friends avatar or actual person live. Now that would be cool. Like a video phone.
Personally I think the PS3 has been on the brink of gaming genius and history. Whether or not we actually break through the fourth wall remains to be seen. With Sony continually offering technical genius and flawless gaming experiences. Home should not be forgotten on the next PlayStation. Being asked to pay for an experience that completely envelops you in is something that happens everyday. Look at the games we buy.
I would gladly pay for an even richer experience, and would hate to lose such a rich experience as Home itself. I am sure a lot of people have ideas in what the new PlayStation will be. I will be hoping that a synthesis of Home and the gaming platform will happen the way it was imagined to some degree in the beginning.
January 12th, 2013 by Godzprototype | 8 comments
Godzprototype is learning the art of creating Machinima, and would like to share it with you. Hope you enjoy.
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Nice ideas Godz. Ive been fascinated with the idea of having a Home space as an immediate menu when you first switch on the system. But its complexities are a hard push for the PS3, maybe not so for the PS4 though. They could simplify it further though; instead of a room you can walk around how about when the machine is switched on, you get your avatar standing in a kind of interface box ( think old Skool VR cage/podium) from which he/she can navigate a menu ( like Minority Report -- add PSEye functionality to make the avatar mimic your own gestures!) and from there you can access all functions and features of the system on or off line. If you wanna visit Home, just step out of the confinement/podium and bam! You’re there!
The trophy system on PS3 has always seemed like a missed opportunity to me too. We need more developers to give us Home rewards for meeting certain requirements in-game, like RDR did with the hidden treasure chests in its world. Giving people more than just a check list to tick off boxes, actual things you can show off within Home y’know…
“Wow! Cool Marty McFly outfit buddy!”
“Thanks, I got it for completing the Back to the Future game, and got a Pit-Bull for doing scene 10 with no mistakes!”
Y’know, that kinda thing should be standard in Home by now…
Interesting ideas Godz. I think making Home the place that you start from when turning on your PS4 is a good way to help gamers see it is a cool place to be in. Some “hardcore” gamers will whine of course at first, but I think once they got into it and understood all the choices it gives, Sony would end up with many more Home users. There are new users coming into Home each week, I know a couple myself that are new to Home in just the past week or so. Great read as always.
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Wow Bill, very interesting. We are all unsure of what is next for the PlayStation 4. But some of your ideas, (after I had thought about them), make sense. Whatever happens I am sure it will improve the online gaming industry. I just hope we all can still have our social network avalible in one form or another. For instance; how can “NEW” PS4 players make friends online in order to play the online games? We would all be sad to lose our Home Network (if that was to happen), but either way I have faith that Sony will take that into concideration and figure that our social network is a neccessity for the new gaming platform. Great article!
Great read Bill, your ideas are insightful. I would love to see HOME continue on the PS4 and would gladly pay for that service next go round. It’s been an amazing free ride with amazing friends since 2009. I for one welcome change cause that is growth. Thank you Sony and ty Bill for future HOME ideas
The rumor was that Sony wanted home to be the next xmb, but its far too unstable and load times are too much for that to be practical, along with maintenance/update down time issue. But in the perfect world it could work. Id personally like home to be set up more socially, instead of action, adventure, sports district etc etc have spaces set up to music genres so have a old west setting that plays country, have a nightclub setting that plays dance, have a Jazz club, have a concert setting playing rock, have a street setting playing r n b and soul, you tend to find music genres sort like minded people into the same spaces. Plus make it multi region, every other social application is, they get round region issues by if its not been released in that region all you see is a default piece of clothing, same again if its been deemed the item needs an age limit if your too young all you see is default clothing.
I oh so hope that this Home service does continue in some form over onto the next Playstation console… and if the ‘Beta’ gets scrubbed off, which at some point it must, I’d gladly dip into my coinage.
Every console needs its start up screen, I can’t for the life of me remember what the PS2s was like, the PS3s is functional, and with the PS4 on the horizon the idea of something brand spanking new like a Home interface does sound intriguing and fresh… dynamic themes of yesteryear, replaced with themes of Aurora, Gothic Cathedral or the Casino etc. Most likely something of an initial, personal space, to select what you want to do, or jump to your actual Personal space in Home. It’s a novel idea, that could be integrated. I hope your ideas get filtered through to the design benches Bill. Great thoughts and a smooth read, thanks for this.
Great article, and I hope you are write about this.
“personally I think the PS3 is on the brink of gaming genius and history.” Great quote! Wish I thought of this!!
Great article Godz,
I think it is possible to see your idea in a console. Nice!
It will be an interesting ride on the PS3 should your visions come into being. Keep a tally and see what happens next.