EA founder questions PS Home goals
via Eurogamer
EA founder Trip Hawkins has questioned the goals of PlayStation Home - suggesting that going after a Second Life- or World of Warcraft-sized audience would be a bit silly and probably result in custard pie on face.
"What I can't reEA founder Trip Hawkins has questioned the goals of PlayStation Home - suggesting that going after a Second Life- or World of Warcraft-sized audience would be a bit silly and probably result in custard pie on face.
"What I can't really tell yet about the various announcements [Sony has] made about online and what they're doing so far, I can't tell whether they're going more towards this mass market idea - the way I'm describing this 'omni-market' - or if they're being lured into essentially trying to compete with Warcraft or Second Life," Trip Hawkins told Hatchet Job.
"My own personal opinion is: if Sony makes Home feel too much like a [World of] Warcraft environment, they're just never going to create the kind of audience size that you're going to see Nintendo and Microsoft create.
"Because clearly Nintendo is orientated towards the mass audience, and even Microsoft has learnt a lot of valuable lessons from things like Xbox Live Arcade," he added.
PlayStation Home, the online virtual world for PS3 owners, should launch into open beta before the end of the year. Hopefully that means quite soon.
It's been rather a long wait and Home's release date has been pushed back on numerous occasions.
Sony's still coy on exactly when the open beta will begin, but has invited hundreds of thousands of community members into the closed testing so far.
We'll keep you posted.ally tell yet about the various announcements [Sony has] made about online and what they're doing so far, I can't tell whether they're going more towards this mass market idea - the way I'm describing this 'omni-market' - or if they're being lured into essentially trying to compete with Warcraft or Second Life," Trip Hawkins told Hatchet Job.
"My own personal opinion is: if Sony makes Home feel too much like a [World of] Warcraft environment, they're just never going to create the kind of audience size that you're going to see Nintendo and Microsoft create.
"Because clearly Nintendo is orientated towards the mass audience, and even Microsoft has learnt a lot of valuable lessons from things like Xbox Live Arcade," he added.
PlayStation Home, the online virtual world for PS3 owners, should launch into open beta before the end of the year. Hopefully that means quite soon.
It's been rather a long wait and Home's release date has been pushed back on numerous occasions.
Sony's still coy on exactly when the open beta will begin, but has invited hundreds of thousands of community members into the closed testing so far.
We'll keep you posted.
