History
Home was originally named 'Hub', and started as a 2D online lobby for the PlayStation 2 game, The Getaway: Black Monday. However, the online userbase for the PlayStation 2 was too narrow and the project was soon ported to the PSN for the PS3. Phil Harrison, then president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, liked the idea of having a virtual 3D community hub for PlayStation gamers, and transferred the project to become PlayStation Home. In a 2007 keynote speech, Phil Harrison used the term "Game 3.0" to describe the service.
Home had been speculated since the launch of PSN and Sony had expressed interest in such a service, specifically trophies (known at the time as "entitlements") for first-party titles. PlayStation Home, as a feature, was first publicly mentioned in an interview with NG-Gamer. This was later detailed by Kotaku and finally confirmed by NG-Gamer. It was officially announced by Phil Harrison on March 7, 2007, during his keynote speech at the 2007 Game Developers Conference and was originally scheduled for a global public release in October 2007.
Home was delayed and expanded multiple times before initially releasing. Invitations to the closed beta were offered to winners of a weekly Warhawk online gaming event. In July 2008, further invitations were sent to some Home XMB theme downloaders in Japan and North America. SCEE and SCEHK did the same, but without releasing a Home XMB theme. Users who purchased more than HK$60 or SG$12 worth of content in a single transaction over the PlayStation Store from August 29 to September 12, 2008 were also invited. In November 2008, SCEA invited annual Qore subscribers. After major version 1.0, invitations were sent worldwide.
The Open Beta test began on December 11, 2008. In March 2009, an ARG game that proved popular was released by nDreams for Home, titled Xi that involved puzzle and intrigue. In June 2009, Peter Edwards, Director of Home for SCEE, reported that the number of users exceeded 7 million and that 80% of users are male aged 18–35. At TGS 2009, Kaz Hirai announced that Home has been downloaded by 8 million users. Jack Buser, Director of Home for SCEA, stated that the name of the "beta" was not going to be removed. In a Eurogamer interview with Peter Edwards on July 24, 2009, Edwards commented that the service will no longer be beta when it "represents a kind of final quality." On October 14, 2009, Jack Buser commented that "the vision of Home has evolved." He said that originally, they were building Home as a "social network for gamers", but it has now developed into a "game platform, first and foremost."
On December 17, 2009, SCEA released its first in-Home Massively multiplayer online game, produced specifically for Home, Sodium. It is a series of games, the first being Sodium One.
In February 2010, emails were sent out to a select few PlayStation Home members inviting them to participate in a new private beta test for the service. This beta test was for feedback on certain changes suggested by the Home community.
The first global public space was released on June 10, 2010 allowing all users from the Asian, European, Japanese, and North American Homes to converge in one space. The space was the "FevaArena Global Pitch Area" which was dedicated to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This space allowed all of Home's users to participate in events, mini-games, and celebrate the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
In June 2010, Sony released a virtual replica of their E3 2010 booth in all versions of Home. The virtual E3 booth, slightly modified, returned the following year with previews of seven different games and the PlayStation Vita (with virtual rewards for watching the videos as well as a demo of a new PlayStation Home game, "Scribble Shooter"). In addition, Sony's E3 press conference was streamed live in PlayStation Home in a special virtual theatre, as well as other live interviews that occurred during the week of E3 2011. The E3 virtual booth returned again for E3 2012 featuring previews of 12 games as well as a virtual avatar of Christina Lee (host of PSN's Pulse) hosting a special E3 Quest for all 12 games with rewards. Finishing the quest grants access to the VIP section previewing upcoming PlayStation Home games and content, including the upcoming MMORG Mercia, as well as Hell Fire Games upcoming Home Tycoon.
On April 20, 2011, Home released version 1.50 which dramatically improved the physics and graphics engines. Sodium 2: Project Velocity was also released.
In November 2011, a new Hub brought a variety of games including Cogs from Lazy 8 Studios. The Hub also featured a new Activity Board and a new User Generated Content events system. Surrounding the Hub are now districts based on game genres to suit the users’ mood. Users can also now watch full length movies for free as an effort by Crackle via Loot. The movies are available on all Loot Entertainment on Demand (EOD) screens.
Read more about this topic: Play Station Home
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