As announced at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, PlayStation Home’s core client will be getting a serious upgrade this fall. And when we say serious, dear readers, we’re talking excessive and impressive in quality, extent, and degree. This is the for real deal upgrade!
I got three words to start us off: Universal. Game. Launching. That’s right – you can now launch into any PlayStation 3 game directly from Home. Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, MotorStorm, and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar’s head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. Never again will you have to sign out of Home to play with (or against) your friends. Simply insert the disc of your choice while in Home and follow the on screen directions and you’ll be good to go.
Shop-a-holics will be stoked to see that an in-store item previewing option will be rolled out. This feature will allow you to preview items of clothing on your character in 3D (including the ability to check out multiple items simultaneously to see what combinations best suit your taste). You’ll be able to preview all furniture in 3D as well, complete with zoom and rotate options so you can check your potential purchases from all angles, right down to the nitty gritty. We’ll also offer you the ability to rent certain items and purchase “consumables” (limited use items) when available – such as the new Shrink Potion that lets you shrink your avatar to a tiny size. All in all, we think you’ll find that these new features allow for greater control over the use of your personal items. We’ve even added a new section to the Menu Pad under Personal > My Purchases to help you keep it all organized.
PlayStation Home v1.3 will also see additional portable objects (like the Bubble Machine) made available to the community. To start, we’ll be giving everyone free cameras that you can use to snap pictures from either a 1st or 3rd person view. These photos will automatically be saved to the Photo section of the XMB, from which you can then upload to the picture frames you have hanging in your personal spaces. We’ll be announcing more portable objects very soon, so be sure to check in on this blog often to stay abreast of the latest PlayStation Home item releases. Or just use the Latest Updates tab in your Menu Pad > Community. We here over at the PlayStation Home Community team keep an updated list of all new content releases in this area.
On the subject of portable objects, rest assured that we’ve listened to your suggestions and made some changes to help you better customize your in-world experience. You’ll be able to manually hide any portable object that you encounter, and objects placed by anyone on your Ignore or Block list will also be hidden. We think you all will find that accessing certain mini-games and watching videos will be much easier thanks to these additional options.
There are tons of little updates that you’ll notice when PlayStation Home v1.3 launches. To start, you’ll see that your avatar has additional emotes – including two new action emotes (you can flip a coin with your friends or play the old “pick a number between 1 and 100” game). You will also be able to pose your avatar in a variety of ways (photo op anyone?). We’ve also added some new categories of clothing (composite and outfits) that will allow you to customize your avatar with greater ease. In addition, we’ve optimized the targeting system, added a new queuing system, fixed quite a few pesky bugs, and are giving you the option to determine your cache size (you can choose from 3, 5, 8, and 12 GB) so as to make navigating Home a much smoother experience. As we get closer to launch, we’ll post complete patch notes for the v1.3 client on the PlayStation Home General forum at www.us.playstation.com. So if you haven’t yet signed up for our forums, please take a moment to do so now – and check in often for more details regarding what’s going on in PlayStation Home.
Last but certainly not least, we’ll be launching a SingStar space right around the time that PlayStation Home v1.3 hits your PlayStation 3s. This swanky night club-esque SingStar-themed game space is sure to be the hot new hub for all of you party goers. Whether you want to get down with your friends on the reactive dance floor, vote for your favorite music videos on the Video Jukebox, or test your knowledge at the SingStar Music Quiz, this space promises to have something for every SingStar fanatic.
See you all in Home!
Game launching is an welcomed addition to HOME. I would like to hear from Sony on how they are working with developers to add this function into future titles. New titles need to actively promote this function, so users are aware that it is there. It would be nice to launch multi-player PSN arcade style games from HOME. I hope smaller devs are receiving help.
WOOT!!
Man this is one Great update!
Now just give HOME its own XMB spot
Get rid of the 4 “press X to continue” pages that form the wall between my XMB and my HOME avatar.
And add Trophy Lvl Titles above our names, for a MMO touch
And HOME will be the best 3D world EVER!!
Omg! This is so awesome! Sony, can I marry you because you make my life so happ! :)
well now were gonna have pesky perverts taking random pics of girls everywhere.. i know my gf isnt going to use home anymore after tht.. owell i like the camera but its something they should take into consideration
This may be the update that opens of HOME to the masses of gamers that have written it off…GAME LAUNCHING FTW!!!
Wow you guys are awesome! Universal Game Launching, Singstar Space, Audi Space, Clothing and Furniture Previewing… these are all great additions to Home.
Should we expect the update in the next few days, or will it not be coming for a week or two?
Damm I remember Home last year so different
Home has so much potential, but you guys are not using.
-The Movie Theater-
Why not stream full length movies for a small fee or have ads like on TV
-Gaming Conventions-
Why not have live streaming of Sony press Conference at E3, GamesCon, and The Tokyo Gameshow. Not many of us live in these area to attent or view these events on TV.
-Unable to deliever Contents what was originally shown-
When will ever be able to stream contents from our HDD in your HOME space? That was of the major “selling” point of HOME and that has yet to materialize.
Oh and lets not forget the 3D trophy room.
How about the ability to change usernames. That would be a plus.
How about going into friends apartments without being invited? I’d have an excuse to sort out all nicely all the junk I never can show off.
The universal game launching is the best new feature! Now the only thing to really make home a place for me to be on during downtime is to be able to listen to my stored on the hdd. Any word of this being worked on? Great work guys!
Nice, thanks Sony. Now wheres the trophy room and the music streaming feuture, cant wait. ;)
Wow, I’m so excited about the new features!!!
What about games on my HDD?…how do I launch those without exiting home?
I’m looking forward to this, Home has come along way since it became public. Glad to see the preview of items coming. It was a pain if you bought something only to find out the three inch picture doesn’t look as good.
@55 nspace2020
Gamers are still going to written this off. If you read carefully, you just launch the game to the main menu….Oh wow, I am going to sign into home just to do what. You will not be able to create a party to join a single multiplayer game.
I am beginning to agree with the people that are saying HOME is a waste of Sony resource because it has yet to deliver on features that was announce 2 years ago.
thank you! now will you guys PLEASE increase the furniture limit!! im dyn over here (not literally).
What a horrible waste of money. I bet PS2 BC could have been restored 5 times over with the resources wasted on this.
SingStar themed room you say? First you’d have to be interested in SingStar, which right now is gimped due to the lack of CORDLESS MICS IN THE US.
still waiting for singstar shirts in home
want the ability to JUMP added post haste
Glad to see the update. One concern I have is inside your personal spaces. I hope the limit of items to be placed is increased, especially in the spaces you purchased. The Log Cabin is barren with the current limit. I like putting out all the freebies I’ve won and acquired, however I have to remove furniture every time I want to put another out.
Are you kidding Sony? With features missing like:
-Cross Game Voice Chat.
-Party Features.
-New Avatars.
-WORKING web browser than doesnt freeze the whole system and run slower than my iPhone.
-Streaming internet music to PS3.
-PS2 BC.
WHY are you bothering with this first???????????????????????????
Ok i need an answer on this
the universal game launching will this work for the PSN store titles aswell or is it only disc based for the time being ?
PS Home also needs the ability to jump.
And login should be faster.
When is the Biohazard 5 space updating?
Japan has had the final for months. I want my Wesker glasses, damn it.
Any updates to the performance of Home? It tends to stutter and lag at times, especially right after jumping to an area with streaming video monitors.
Wow, the things people are willing to pay actual money for. Mindboggling.
Oh and the icons in the store always take forever to load.
Item preview YES! Camera YES! This is great!
Not BC for PS2, Not Universal Cross Game Chat, Not Hulu on the XMB, thus not gonna care.
Awesome. I really like how fast HOME is growing.
With that being said….
Sony, I enjoy your products…but for the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY ON THIS EARTH
PLEEEEEEAAASSE!!!!
Bring us some universal grouping and xgame voice chat sooner than later. Especially…without using home
That preview option was my idea! :D Eeeee!!!
Thank you, Home team! Thanks for actually listening to your community!
It’s a miracle that at least one team in the gaming world does.
How much cache do we get in the current Home version?
cool home is getting better and better. i just want some free furniture that white crap is pretty blah
WOW, UGL and some serious upgrades, nice Locust, man you guys are on a role this week, awesome!!! o_O :D
“As we get closer to launch, we’ll post complete patch notes for the v1.3 client on the PlayStation Home General forum at http://www.us.playstation.com.”
I liked that one. I also can’t wait to see how PlayStation Home will look when is finished.
Keep it coming guys, and I hope we get to hear of the trophy room/space. ;-)
I love what the development team is doing with home, but I’m really looking forward to them fixing the picture frame problem. You should be able to put frame on any wall you want to, and not some pre-determined place. (especially in the default personal space)
I paid 3 bucks for a frame I don’t even use, because of how I have my apartment set up. (inb4changeyourapartmentaround) Anyways, keep up the good work devs.
Home is not a good, exclusive game.
I want good, exclusive games for my PS3.
Cool stuff guys, even though I rarely play Home
So, Will home finally be out of beta?
If no, will it ever be out of the open beta stage?
WOW sony is really coming back i hope we get a 2nd golden age
This sounds so awesome. BUT does this also mean launching into home is more streamlined? It should be only 1 button press from being in the XMB to be moving around in a Home space.
I’m also seriously hoping the larger cache option means if i give 12gb of HDD space to Home there will be basically zero load-time between Home Spaces. Is this correct? If so, my biggest home complaints have been eradicated.
Thank you for listening to our requests. Keep up the amazing work.
On the (very) rare occasions I’ve started up Home the last few months, there’s always a gazillion MB of updates to slog through, before finally arriving in the usual boring environment that adds nothing to the PS3.
Aside from pushing ads in front of us, I really don’t see the point of it all, and hope Sony isn’t diverting too many technical resources away from PSN network improvement for this thing.
If you’re not 14 years old, why bother with Home?
definitly looking forward to this, good work guys
BUT…we still want those bravia tv’s you promised us :(
Looking good! Thank you so much for this information, Locust_Star!
Awsome update, just one thing missing…… Trophy Room.
cool
Please add gifting items that we have bought to someone else.
Please do not ‘fix’ walking on railings in the mall. NEVER ‘fix’ that.