“The first thing that Sony needs to do for Home’s future is to redefine the platform’s mission statement. What is Home’s main function and why does it need to exist in the future?

From what I understand, Home was initially conceived as a gathering place for video gamers to meet and launch their games from the relatively new PS3 console. While Home may have been designed as a conduit for gamers and a promotional tool for the games themselves, it grew into a self-sustaining entity with its own massive library of content. The more that the emphasis has tilted towards “Home” content, the more it began to fail as a promotional tool. If Home had been more successful as a hub for gamers, we wouldn’t be seeing the current controversy regarding core features being made exclusive to PS Plus subscribers. Home’s hard-core users and PS Plus subscribers would be the same group of people but that really is not the case. As such, the features in Home being made exclusive to PS Plus subscribers come off more as coercion to buy the service than merely promotion of the service. It’s just a poor way to build or reward customer loyalty…but that’s been covered ad nauseum elsewhere.

Third-party developers have tried to create their own tent-pole games for Home with mixed results. Recently, the prices associated with Home games have reached or exceeded the levels of stand-alone games. Unfortunately, the games themselves pale by comparison, tend to be riddled with bugs and generally wobble during their early stages due to strain on Home’s servers. SCEA has essentially turned their segment of Home over to the third-party developers for games, content and even special events at this stage. For these Home games to succeed in the long-term, the games need to have better quality control to reduce errors, regular updates to keep players engaged and some cost-containment to avoid unflattering comparison with disc-based games.

SCEE has done a better job of maintaining Home’s promotional drive. The EU region regularly sees more game-related events, free rewards and public space re-skins to introduce new products, much to the chagrin of NA users. Still, so many obvious potential promotional opportunities have been missed. Sony likes to say that the PS3 “only does everything.” Guess who else does everything? Sony Corporation themselves. Their electronics and entertainment divisions are massive, yet we see very little Sony presence on Home anymore. Remember the old “Make Believe” quests at Central Plaza? Seems like a long time ago.

Consider this. Last year Sony Pictures released the 50th anniversary James Bond movie, Skyfall. The movie went on to become the highest grossing movie that Sony Pictures ever released (the highest grossing movie in UK history). Adele’s theme song on a Sony record label was a top-10 hit. There was also Skyfall-related DLC released for a James Bond game. Did anyone see anything about Skyfall or James Bond in Home? Talk about missed opportunity.

How about cross-promotion with the electronics division? Why in the world do the televisions and radios in Home carry the Loot brand name? Sony could have slapped their logo all over Home’s virtual electronics. How about some sort of Home functionality for Sony Ericsson phones or Sony Internet-connected TV’s? I know that they can’t run the platform itself but some sort of application to link the platform to their electronics must be possible. Sony network and Sony electronics can provide mutual promotion to a built-in customer base. You surely see a fair share of Sony Electronics product placement in the James Bond movies. It sounds like preaching to the choir but it’s baffling that Sony doesn’t take advantage.

Maybe people do not want to see advertising plastered all over Home’s public spaces but it could help to keep prices down, sponsor more free events/games and provide long-term sustainability.

That’s more words than I was planning to type but I think that SEN has to decide what Home’s purpose for the future is going to be. Are they just leasing out space to third party developers? If so, then there has to be some mechanism to ensure quality and cost controls for their customers. Sony inevitably will take the heat for developers’ misfires and inadequacies. If Home is going to be more of a promotional tool, as it was originally intended to be, Sony must learn to promote themselves. In addition to free advertising for their own products, Sony can demonstrate Home’s advertising potential to other businesses seeking new avenues to showcase their products. Give Home a raison d’être.

In business these days, branding is everything and the Sony brand is among the best-known worldwide. The future of Home does not rest with handing the platform off to virtually unknown third parties, regardless of how important they are for providing content to the platform.”

Imagine viewing -- and then buying -- a PS4 from your PS3! Amd to be able to do that with LOTS of Sony stuff can only increase sales. There are a lot of idiot self-proclaimed Sony fanboys running around inside Home that think all they make are Playstations. Imagine what they’d do when faced with a new world of Sony stuff!

Not just that, but even little things. You just realised your Dualshock has a broken L2 trigger? You’re already in Home, go to the Sony Shop and order a new one! They’re missing a trick not advertising themselves in their own world, well raised point Burbie.