03.12.07
gdc in a nutshell
If you had told me a week ago that the only thing worth talking about at this year’s Game Developers Conference would be Sony’s keynote, I’d have laughed in your face. Perhaps not a barking gale of uproarious mirth, but a sly snigger, at least.
However, with not a lot to see in terms of third party publishers, it was down to the platform holders to provide interest. It went a little something like this:
- Microsoft: Here are all the games you’ve seen before. Also, Fable 2 will have a dog in it. APPLAUSE.
- Nintendo: Shigeru Miyamoto’s wife quite likes games now. APPLAUSE.
- Sony: PlayStation 3 is going to have a user-customisable 3D online universe populated by detailed avatars, each with a personal space, interacting in lounges, lobbies and other spaces put together by media and consumer companies. There’s going to be an incredible-looking game where you can build your own levels and puzzles with unique objectives and share them over the network, then play other people’s games and rank them to contribute to global standings. Singstar is going to let you upload videos of your performances as well as downloading new music to sing to, so you’ll be able to take part in competitions and rate other people’s talent. Etc., etc.
You could, of course, dismiss the Sony stuff easily enough as a knee-jerk reaction to someone over there discovering Web 2.0, renaming it Game 3.0 and throwing out a bunch of products - and yes, you can identify all sorts of places they’ve nicked ideas from. Their Game 3.0 stuff (I’m going to have to continue using that awful moniker until I think of something better to call it, sadly) steals wholesale from a wide variety of sources. There are chunks of Xbox Live and Second Life, of course, but also elements of YouTube and even AmIHotOrNot, both of which are/were sites on the vanguard of Web 2.0.
Plenty of people have been dismissing PlayStation Home on those grounds, and on the basis that it’s not a game. People won’t buy a console for something that isn’t a game, they claim.
They’re wrong.
People will buy a console (perhaps not a 425 bleedin’ quid console, although that’s a discussion for another day) for a “gimmick” like PlayStation Home. The more I look at it, the more I like it - both from a personal “I’d like to mess around in that” level, and from the point of view of respecting the decisions Sony has made in focusing development efforts on it. It’s a great critical-mass product… If you’ve got a few friends who own PS3s and who use PlayStation Home, the peer pressure to buy into it will be immense. It’s not hard to envisage teens (and quite a lot of twentysomethings for that matter) “hanging out” in PlayStation Home, especially since it acts as a portal to a bunch of multiplayer arcade titles, as well as to what looks like a fair amount of media.
Besides which, the most stunning thing about all of this is that Sony has actually leapfrogged Microsoft in terms of online vision - something nobody really expected to happen within the next 18 to 24 months. Note that I say vision, not implementation. I’m not willing to put down any wagers on how long it’s going to take for them to actually get their online service up to the level of consistency and reliability that Microsoft has achieved on Live - but regardless of that, they have flashy headline features and a genuine forward-looking approach which leaves Xbox Live looking like a tool of the last generation.
Which is great - not because I want Sony to “beat” Microsoft, or vice versa, but simply because it’s about bloody time someone brought competition to Microsoft’s doorstep in the online space. Xbox Live is dull as fucking dishwater in a number of ways. It’s fantastic if you want to play games against your friends online, but it’s become increasingly clear in the last two years that that’s not the be-all and end-all of online. Bringing to consoles something I was doing on PCs almost a decade and a half ago doesn’t count as innovative or, frankly, even interesting, not least because there are plenty of people who aren’t interested in competitive multiplayer - it should be there by default, and it should work well by default, but it should no longer be a headline feature.
PlayStation Home and the other stuff Sony announced last week is if nothing else a step towards doing Cool Shit with the network port on the back of every modern console, and one of the best things about it is that hopefully it’ll knock some heads at Microsoft together and make them think up some Cool Shit as well. It’s win-win for consumers in that way - proper competition between big corporations is good for us, so Sony getting back onto the bike they’ve been falling off in slow motion for a year and a half is great news.
Although, on a worrying note, it’s actually edged me to the point where I’m probably going to buy a PS3 by the end of the year. The press versions of the console don’t do any of the media stuff and suck at connecting to the network (there’s a test platform network they use instead), and the promise of Blu-Ray playback and PlayStation Home is almost enough to justify the price point to me. Almost.
Wrestlevania said,
March 13, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Whilst I can readily appreciate where Sony are taking online interaction with Home, I’m more than a little creeped out by their “all the beautiful people” approach to the environment. It’s quite vomiticious, at least in its current SonyStyle-esque approach to the world.
What gives Second Life an edge - and a draw, in my opinion - is its inherent grittiness; spaces are only as tidy as the owner has designed them to be. With Home everything and everyone would appear to be beguiling perfect in every way, which makes me wonder if that won’t detract from the experience over time. Will we become weary of facing the same unrealistically flawless visages and vistas 18 months after launch? Will the dependence on simple mini games - such as pool or air hockey - be enough to draw people out from their “Homes” to interact with other Home participants? Further, will people be gathering in public spaces with predictable regularity and in significant enough numbers to warrant doing anything other than (presumably) teleporting from one friend’s space to another?
Keith Andrew said,
March 14, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I can agree with Wrestlevania in that, I’m sure the Sony of 5-10 years ago would have come up with something that was visually more ‘cool’. This just looks very…plain, and in that respect I think it looks (and I choose that word carefully) positively last-generation in comparison to the cheeky-chirpy approach of Nintendo’s Miis.
In that respect, I do think that this is ever so slightly knee-jerk, and I don’t believe Phil Harrison’s claim that they’ve been planning this since 1857. I think they brought the PS3 to the table, saw what everyone else was doing, realised that what they had wasn’t enough, and now they’re going to bolt Home on at the end.
Which is fine. I don’t mind that at all, and I think it could be a huge commercial draw for the console. I just wish it looked a bit nicer. A bit more Sony circa 1996/97.
Rob Fahey said,
March 24, 2007 at 1:54 am
I do agree with both of you, in fact - I think that Home looks nice, but it’s certainly a bit generic. I’d like to have seen them offering something which had a bit more opportunity for quirkiness, although I suppose that IS something they could add down the line. For example, it would be cool if you could decide that you want your apartment (or commercial zone) to be cel-shaded; or if you wanted your character to have a different art style entirely, rather than just swapping around Sims-style features.
I guess we’ll see how it matures - I maintain that for now, it’s pretty promising, but a lot will rest on just how flexible the system is. If everyone ends up looking the bloody same in it, it’ll be a major downside for the system.
Keith Andrew said,
March 24, 2007 at 3:54 pm
It definitely has potential - I just think the Sony I used to admire (mainly from a marketing point of view) would have come up with something that was instantly more…striking and distinctive visually.
Perhaps it’s a case of the designers getting a bit lazy because the PS3’s power enables them to do so much - if they’d have tried Home on the PS2, its limitations might have forced them to be a bit more creative. Maybe.
Anyway. I need to ask you a favour, Rob. An article I’d like to shove in your face. As this is my only means of contact, I’m going to have to bug you here. Again.
Give me a mail, if you would - badcoe@gmail.com.
Rob Fahey said,
March 24, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Spooky - I just emailed you about five minutes ago
There’s no doubt that real creativity happens when artists butt up against the limitations of their medium. To my mind, everything on the PS3 (and the Xbox 360) so far looks utterly fucking boring - some of the games aren’t bad, but visually they’re exceptionally dull. Everyone is too focused on making things that are technically great, and that takes the focus away from making things that are genuinely interesting, to my mind.
It’s always the way, though - the same was true for the PSone and PS2 as well, to a large degree. Artistry doesn’t shine through until the programmers have had their fill of boring “photo-realism”.
Keith Andrew said,
March 24, 2007 at 4:34 pm
True enough. I think everyone gets seduced by the “it looks just like a movie” talk around a launch. It has its place - a lot of what appeals to me about a series such as Project Gotham is those little moments when, for a split second, it actually does look real.
But yes - I guess everything is a bit samey at the moment. I enjoyed the little twist Realtime Worlds put on Crackdown in that respect; that little dark line they drew around every character meant I felt no guilt accidently running over innocent members of the public during a mission. Which has to be a good thing, right?
Anyway, I guess it may be a good 4 or 5 years before we see games playing around with ‘next-gen’ visuals in a Killer7 or Okami type way.
Or I could just pray for Rez 2.
A New Challenger Appears » ps3 launches; what next? said,
March 24, 2007 at 6:45 pm
[...] of course, that Sony has done themselves any favours in the last 18 months. I’ve enthused about Home on this blog already, but while I maintain that it’s a great move for them, it’s a bit [...]