Oh wow, PlayStation Home is becoming a perfect example of how to get it all wrong all the time.
First they think it’s a great idea to replicate the annoying fact that we need to wait for things in real life by making us queue to play an arcade game in the system.
But that seems to have been accepted by the die hard fans as being realistic so Sony then decided to take it a step further and force you to download gigatons of data to enjoy home fully.
Well it seems like some people are now complaining about the obvious lag issues that this has caused and Sony have come up with a great solution. They have now patched Home and removed the voice chat ability. Yes removed it, possibly the best point about Home was that you could gather together and discuss your gaming goodness and they went and took it away.
But don’t fear Sony is kind enough to remind us that we can use any USB keyboard to text everyone… something like a mirc channel or maybe a forum?
Apparently it is going to return when they figure out how to get it working properly but for now Sony wins the epic fail award.
Who else thinks it’s about time to put Home out to pasture?
Source: Official PlayStation Blog
Last Updated: December 19, 2008
baba
December 19, 2008 at 10:33
I don’t get it. Home is in Beta, in in other words it is not finished. They are testing it, to get people’s feedback and make it better and improve it.
How can you publish a negative article about something that has not been released yet. In my eyes it shows that Sony is picking up on problems, which is a good thing. Come on Lazy, you can do better than that…
Rudolph
December 19, 2008 at 10:46
So you’re saying that the fact that they stick the word beta in there removes all possibility of bad publicity?
Open your gmail account, look at the logo, gmail is still in beta as well, more than 3 years after it was started. So google can now stuff up anything in gmail and we’re not supposed to complain because “its still in beta”?
baba
December 19, 2008 at 11:27
I don’t use gmail.
You don’t get it: the fact that they removed the voice chat says: Thanks for the feedback guys, there is a problem and we’re going to fix it, please bear with us. I’ve looked on other sites, they all say it is a temporary thing, they don’t go around saying things like:
“… Sony wins the epic fail award.”
By the way, Home has only been in Open Beta for a week now, how can you compare it with gmail that has been in beta for 3 years???
Give the company a chance FFS.
ferver
December 19, 2008 at 11:31
There’s a reason for the removal of the voice chat. Many users (mostly female) were complaining of being harrassed on the system or constantly insulted. It was impossible for them to use Home as they were followed by groups of teenage losers who wouldn’t leave them alone.
Aequitas
December 19, 2008 at 12:24
wow … fanboi much ?
If something is in the public space, and available to the public to use, it can garner criticism. Sony removed one of the only features that wasn’t bad in their glorified menu system … I think people are allowed to be annoyed.
I think Tycho from penny-arcade said it best “this is what happens when your marketing department tries to make a game”
LazySAGamer
December 19, 2008 at 12:31
It’s in Beta which means that there will be problems and these problems will need to be rectified.
Me posting an article complaining about the lag and dodgy interaction between the rooms would be unfair as it’s in beta and they are working on it. However taking away features is not what a beta is about and is just showing us that they really are out of their depth.
If voice chat was removed because of the abuse of female avatars then they should rather have added a better complaints mechanism to deal with it. There is no excuse.
papa-action
December 19, 2008 at 14:07
It was also removed because it was creating massive strain on the system. They identified that this was an issue so they removed the feature so that the open beta could continue so that the rest of the features of the service could be tested properly without lag being an issue. Makes perfect sense. Lazy…you are blowing this out of proportion.
janrik
December 19, 2008 at 14:39
Darn, I wanted to walk around all weekend shouting at people!
baba
December 19, 2008 at 22:10
If home is released and they do stuff like this, you can rant all you want at Sony, and call them any names you want but:
IT IS A BEEEETAAAAAAA!!!!!
THEY CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT TO GET IT WORKING PROPERLY!!!!
@Aequitas: I’m no fanboy, I’ve got all the consoles and I play them all. (Even the Wii once a month 😳 )
LazySAGamer
December 20, 2008 at 02:11
Fear not the next time someone releases a Beta like COD5 or Killzone 2 and then removes the voice ability I will make a big thing about it as well.
It’s a Beta not an Alpha, this problem should have been seen months ago and rectified then.
xyber
December 22, 2008 at 08:34
I’m happy they took it away, saves me from downloading some crap I did not want to hear in first place. Now I want the ability to turn off the streaming videos thats eating into my cap, but I guess that will never happen as advertising is part of Home. Anyways, until there is something worthwhile to do in Home I won’t be starting it up again. I don’t need some social tool to sit and talk *&%^ with strangers all day, got beter things to do.
Shodan
December 22, 2008 at 10:42
IMO just add an option to mute everyone if the females are being harrased. If its still buggy then fix it. But I must admit Home is not as good as I hoped it would be. I get bored after just being able to walk around and stand in ques the whole time. But i suppose there will be a silver lining on the cloud.
gazza
December 22, 2008 at 20:14
It’s not even a glorified menu system, it’s a tacked on etxra at teh moment at best, you cant launch games from it, your friends are never on the same server of the bat, you can’t launch strait into it when you switch your system on, and its just plain boring, the xmb is more fun, works better, doesnt need to be downloaded, doesnt load, doesnt suffer from sever errors and so on. Why anyone would want to use home right now is beyond me. Id rather the people working on home were put to implementing features like cross game chat and such for the xmb.
gazza
December 22, 2008 at 20:30
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171998 voice chat is back