Sony Clone: A Better Second Life?
by prokofy on 07/03/07 at 7:38 pm
Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Worlds, Planets, Universes, Metaverses, and Now Those Record People Have Copied Our Game, Geez
Sony has just gone and cloned Second Life!
OMGODZORZ even the welcome areas look like they were *lifted straight out of Ahern”.
I kid you not, kids. Go check it out.
I’m still absorbing the shock of this news out of GDC, but will have more for you soon. I hear PS3s cost about $600-700? But this game/world/interconnected user-content thingie is free, so far.
Onder Skall
Mar 7th, 2007
It’s so hard to tell with Sony if they’re going to hit one out of the park or fall flat on their faces.
I made a Squidoo page for this at http://www.squidoo.com/ps3home/ only an hour ago, actually. I’ll be dumping all PS3 Home stuff that I find there.
Onder Skall
Mar 7th, 2007
Oop, here’s an active link to the PS3 Home Squidoo page.
Wayfinder Wishbringer
Mar 7th, 2007
Considering it’s Sony, considering it’s free, considering they plan on allowing people to host their own worlds/lands… if I were LL I’d be shaking in my boots right now. Considering the fact that people are willing to spend $5,200+ a year for an island… I don’t think they’ll balk at buying a PS3 for similar features.
And if Sony is smart enough to offer a software package for PCs… well, that would very possibly spell the death throes of SL and LL. And no one there could say they weren’t warned. LL has had years to improve its platform and customer relations and has failed miserably. It was predictable that sooner or later the big boys would come along and steal their market. In fact, I consider it inevitable. They’re not going to let a punk company like Linden Lab stand in their way.
Baba
Mar 7th, 2007
Looks cool. Could suck if sony decides to suck it up. I won’t spend $600 for a PS3 for the games or the blue ray dvd player. I won’t spend it for “Home” either.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 7th, 2007
I remain in loyal opposition to King Philip.
Onder Skall
Mar 7th, 2007
Alright, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that this will be any kind of success. Remember Final Fantasy XI. That should have completely dominated all MMORPGs but… well… does anybody even know anyone who has even played it?
Artemis Fate
Mar 7th, 2007
This seems much more like an advanced Sims Online, then Second Life
FlipperPA Peregrine
Mar 7th, 2007
Looks great, please go!
I’ll quote some of my questions posted over at 3pointD:
“This looks interesting, but I think they’re missing a lot of important features. People have called SL a glorified 3-D chatroom, which I find a bit ridiculous. This application would appear to fit that tag, however (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
(1) The ability to create content. It looks like you can only use stock Sony content. This could get stale very fast. “Game dev style building tools” is far too high a level of entry to have the vast array of content within Second Life. As klunky as the tools can be, they are easy to learn.
(2) I’d hardly brag about the avatar customization. It looks very minimal, and from the shots, you can’t be a furry / tiny / robot, or anything not resembling a twenty something human. That could be a pro in the business realm, however.
(3) Great graphics, great physics; hopefully SL will catch up in those departments.
(4) Is there individual inventory, or are you just downloading from a stock library content? It appears as if it were all stock.
(5) No scripting language and high level content creations tools undermine the potential for emergent behavior, which is a large portion of what makes Second Life so wonderful.
(6) You won’t be able to get naked.
Hopefully it will grow and evolve – and it looks gorgeous – but for my two cents, it does look like Sony will own all the I.P. and it will be a closed system; ping me if there’s going to the a PC or Mac version!
”
Let’s also not forget, this *IS* Sony we’re talking about, who manage to work themselves out of any propriety startard (Beta, Minidisc, Blueray to name a few). Strife over at the SL Forums has actually made a very good post about some of the differences which should be shared, and I quote:
“You won’t have neighbors in Sony’s world.
The comparison between SL and Sony’s world isn’t a good one. A better comparison would be with URU. Your traditional game has distinct levels, traversing them requires a special loading screen (typically). In URU these levels were their own little worlds, called an Age; to move between ages you linked (with a book). From what I can see of Sony’s game, it has the same layout. Both have private areas that you have to invite people to (including multi-player content). Land in SL is bound by geometry, it is continuous; there are no loading screens if you fly from one end of the world to the other (when you TP in SL, the loading screen you see is the sim moving your data to the new sim; it is loading you, not you loading it). While this may seem trivial, it is a key factor in the design of the graphics engine. SL is designed for huge dynamic scene graphs, Sony’s world and URU are designed for optimized enclosed spaces (SL’s octrees are dynamic, URU’s are static).
Houses won’t be next to each other because they will be in different instances of the same place (this is supported by the fact that Sony assigns housing, the only way this could be done fairly is if they were all the same).
Shards
The spaces shown in the pictures and demo video are limited in size. They are already using an instance system for homes, it is no great leap to suggest they are use shards to allow them to scale and localize.
Where’s the user created content?
In the demo video they do not mention content creation except for sharing videos. Objects & clothing are purchased from Sony (or share between users).
No competition means limited selection. The objects provided are complex mesh. This will be a limiting factor in what Sony can do with it’s world.
Complex mesh require extensive amounts of bandwidth and memory (SL gets around this by using parametric mesh; instead of streaming the entire mesh, it just streams parameters to generate the mesh; achieving something like a
100:1 compression rate on simple objects).
Product Placement & Advertising
In the last 30 seconds of the video they briefly mention sponsored spaces.
These will be spaces that Sony rents out to companies for advertising purposes. They won’t be permanent; any content they give out is likely to evaporate at some later date. I’ll put 10 to 1 odds that there will be a Pepsi or a Coke machine in the public spaces within a 3 months. In other words Sony intends to use their world for product placement advertising.
Sources:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/07/playstation-home-the-free-virtual-world-of
-playstation-3/
http://www.us.playstation.com/News/PressReleases/381”
The competition will be good, and this will give people who just want a game to go to. Linden Lab needs competition more than anything, so I applaud it, but I highly doubt LL is frightened by this. Microsoft and Google are still much larger threats to blow LL off the map than Sony, as they have been.
Regards,
-Flip
Nacon
Mar 7th, 2007
Meh, it may rolls around like There.com because it shown a poor idea how well you can customize (make your own texture and upload) and actually build your own home (with prims?) and how the hell are we going to get into marketing in that world?
If you can’t do marketing in Home… then there’s no point to it. They only can give you what they can give you but you can’t give them anything.
Graphic look nice… but that’s because it’s from the power of a PS3. (like… duh?)
Urizenus
Mar 7th, 2007
I agree with Flip and Nacon. It seems a lot more like 3D TSO than Second Life. On the other hand, if they can pump *enough* content in, maybe not having custom content won’t matter. Mods should take care of the “can’t get naked” issue.
Tenshi Vielle
Mar 7th, 2007
Shit, Prok, if you’re gonna steal my thunder, at least credit me with popping the link on here first. *pokes you in the shoulder*
Maria LaVeaux
Mar 7th, 2007
They may have Lifted SL’s look (To a small extent) but it looks and reads like they have Chosen TSO’s playability. Just my Opinion, but this one looks like a Face Plant. It’s just TSO with Ramped Graphics.
Maria
FlipperPA Peregrine
Mar 7th, 2007
Another thing: this will all but require a keyboard, the on-screen option for typing looks horrible, and the canned phrases? Yikes, it’d be like a world full of welcome-area gestures (Miya dee miya doo, Miko in a box, the shit is bananas B A N A N A S). Will console game players want to get a keyboard, and will PC gamers want to buy a $600 console? SL’s greatest strength is it’s people. It started with hard core geeks into 3-D virtual worlds and built gradually and steadily. Do you think hard core VW geeks will switch to a console-based world? If you’re going to have problems getting them, how do you build the critical mass of humans required to create the community, the most essential asset of any VW? Just thinking out loud a bit, here.
Simondo Nebestanka
Mar 7th, 2007
Brilliant analysis FlipperPA.
This looks wicked.. kind of like SL on steroids. Is it reasonable to assume that perhaps some genius is already hard at work on their open source SL viewer that will hook into the current grid, but look as polished and shiny as “Home”? This video is hopefully a great inspiration.
ps. One thing was glaringly obvious by its omission.. I didn’t spot anyone flying! What the hell?!!
csven
Mar 8th, 2007
“Mods should take care of the “can’t get naked” issue.”
I don’t think you’ll see many/any mods of the typical PC variety. From how I understand this it’ll work similar to MS’s Marketplace. The real content will come from game developers who get the SDK’s (it’s a good way to extend the playability of their games). That content will most likely not come from users. Some – probably a very few – game companies might open up their PS3 games to people modding *their* games (i.e. people would submit content to the game company who then screen it), but I’m guessing that won’t translate into user content for Sony’s “Home”.
We’ll see. It’s pretty, but it’s definitely not like SL.
Szentasha Salome
Mar 8th, 2007
After my experience with Sony playing SWG, I vowed never to play another Sony online game again.
This world looks like its just a way to meet people and socialize before playing PS3 games with others online. Its a neat idea but wont be as open and flexible as SL.
Veronique Lalonde
Mar 8th, 2007
Not many women in this world, eh? Must all be in SL! Nice graphics, though.
Ickabod Humphreys
Mar 8th, 2007
Bah.. no user created content.. no Prim building.. no sex balls.. no furries… hardly a complete ripoff of SL I’d say. However I will admit the welcome area does look a little like our own.. only prettier.
It’s more like the SL Engine on Steriods but without the Saturated Fat if anything else.
Seriously, I wouldn’t even call this a threat to Second Life. However I will call it a threat to the Nintendo Wii and it’s Mii system.
At any rate I wouldn’t bother with Home, considering I’m not willing to spend $600′s on a PS3 to begin with.
flakfizer
Mar 8th, 2007
All things said true – SL user base is great. But.. give the average home gamer to choose between Sony’s Home and SL.. the first thing he/she will see is.. graphics. Now guess what will be the choice. And guess which “program” will be optimized for the specific graphics hardware. Now that can also good news – LL have to do something about it and this may push away people that don’t fit the community of SL – so better for the community in short term, in long term it will be difficult to get new SL members IF Sony’s home gets the popularity. Popularity of Home will ring the bell for companies to look elsewhere, but not in SL.
History showed that open,flexible,complex systems are not always the choice of the average joe – he wants a simple, neat thing..and less choice, even if it limits his freedom, not even – he doesnt realize it.
I hope LL will take a close look at this trailer..and try to do better, on the viewer side and on backend. Recent news about re-structuring sound promising, and in the right direction, but there is a long way to go from plans to implementation. Im crossing fingers for SL.
Prokofy Neva
Mar 8th, 2007
>Shit, Prok, if you’re gonna steal my thunder, at least credit me with popping the link on here first. *pokes you in the shoulder*
I don’t see where you are popping any links?
Actually, I need to thank Clubside Granville for the email that tipped me off to this story, and about a minute after I got it from him, I saw references begin to flood all over, I posted it to Twitter and BBC World was then airing their story a minute later.
CronoCloud Creeggan
Mar 8th, 2007
I wonder if this is actually based on SL code?
Too bad Linux on the PS3 doesn’t have hardware graphics acceleration or one could try compiling the open source code on it and thus have a standard SL client.
It sure is pretty though and smooth.
Nacon
Mar 8th, 2007
CronoCloud said: “Too bad Linux on the PS3 doesn’t have hardware graphics acceleration or one could try compiling the open source code on it and thus have a standard SL client.”
There is an on-going source called “Yellow Dog Linux” and you’ll have to do some major work into the hardware to access hardware graphics acceleration support to GameOS. I believe they are downloadable at the moment.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/support/solutions/ydl_5.0/
Also Brian Dipert’s research and analyzing it.
http://www.edn.com/blog/400000040/post/1870007187.html?nid=2679
Other than that, I really don’t speak Linux.
shockwave yareach
Mar 8th, 2007
It’s Sony. So even if it was the last MMORPG on Earth, I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.
Magister Ludi
Mar 8th, 2007
People are so easily swayed by the power of P.R.
This is a 3-D chat room, no frills, no way to make $, no user created content, proprietary to the Playstation, etc, etc.
Even if this had all the benefits of SL with none of the problems, I’m with Shockwave Yareach (above), I wouldn’t touch a Sony product with a 10 foot pole. Sony products blow like a $2 crack ho; totally unsatisfactory, and you don’t want your friends seeing you do it.
Doubledown Tandino
Mar 8th, 2007
I personally like Sony. They’ve always come out with a better version of a tech-product a few years after: examples, Playstation, or Sony’s version of the Ipod.
But this Sony world is just a plastic-coated superficial version of what Second Life is.
Sure, Sony’s version looks better, but the depth of possibilities are pathetic… especially when Sony will be running this world.
Overcast
Mar 8th, 2007
Yeah, umm – those who think it’s a giid idea have obviously never played any of Sony’s online games – just wait, they’ll get some serious cash out of you – it’s the one thing they seem efficient at doing.
I’ll stick around the real SL – for good or bad, lol.
Hiro Pendragon
Mar 8th, 2007
“Your life. Your network. Your home.”
This looks really hot, especially with the games that you can go right to – something SL is severely lacking in. However, it’s clear this is little more than a There clone.
like_ummm
Mar 8th, 2007
The best news I’ve heard about SL in a long time – it’s going down! Bye Bye LoL Labs you stupid f*cks.
You know all of the best content creators are going to leave first once they find a better platform – and you will be left with noobies only and no one to create anything. And it serves you right coz you have ignored these users for so long. And you will be ruined – hahaha – ’bout time.
Artemis Fate
Mar 8th, 2007
“You know all of the best content creators are going to leave first once they find a better platform – and you will be left with noobies only and no one to create anything. And it serves you right coz you have ignored these users for so long. And you will be ruined – hahaha – ’bout time.”
Probably a lot of content creators will leave once SL gets a REAL competitor. This, however, is not it.
From what I can see, this has no content creation, everything is bought (for probably a large fee) from the Sony Store. It’s a lot more like Sims Online 2 i’d say, then Second Life 2
Overcast
Mar 8th, 2007
“I personally like Sony. They’ve always come out with a better version of a tech-product a few years after: examples, Playstation, or Sony’s version of the Ipod.”
But – in the MMO world, the examples are clearly *quite* the opposite. Before I start let me say that Sony has quite a number of good products and games too. Just keep in mind their stance to date on the current MMO’s they run and ‘respect’ they have failed to show many long term players (they seem biased to certain ‘sectors’ or ‘types’ of players)
Ask any long term player of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies… Sony made a lot of changes and *many* of the players are quite opposed to what they have done.
Although, many of the threads are long since buried, you can find a lot of direct opinions here on Sony’s changes: http://www.station.sony.com/community.vm
Primarily Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) and Everquest. I can’t speak for the other games, really. I’ve only played Everquest and a Very short Beta in EQ2…. but the SWG issue was very much discussed even in Sony’s other games, as the changes they made were so dramatic, and impacted/trivialized the work other players had put in.
Just the SWG fiasco alone should steer anyone who seriously might plan to put in some time developing content for a Sony product…
Bascially, many people has spent a large amount of time and effort into getting their characters to ‘Jedi’ status and in one ‘revamp’ Sony more or less gives it to anyone upon asking. This would be akin to you spending a couple years coming up with the Lindens to support a shopping mall and property it sits on, paying the tier and monthly costs… And then, next week Linden changes the rules: Now anyone can freely own 4096m, and gets 5000 Lindens a week, free. Seriously, they did JUST that in SWG.
Or perhaps you spent days scripting an object and Sony knows many people did spent time scripting objects (take access scripts for instance) and *boom* in one patch, they give everyone access to a GUI that can make any manner of these scripts easily for you.
Then in everquest, they kept just saturating the game with more and more powerful items. To the point where anything you got this month would be next to worthless in 90 days when the next expansion came out. Oh, sell it you say? When there are 20 more of them for sale… *everyday*, the prices on that item very, very quickly drop due to competition. It’s not at all unheard of for an item that costs 5,000+ to be worth 25 in 3 month’s time. Some items retained value, but not many. Yes, market forces will do that to some items, of course – but believe me, not saturation to the degree in that game!!!
So keep this in mind – both Linden Labs and Sony have dislaimers in place, saying anything you do in this game is their property, or at least they aren’t responsible if major changes suddenly make all your work null and void. As far as I can tell, Linden seems to attempt to work in this context. Sony simply doesn’t care; if it makes that bottom line rise quickly, they will do it – they are very ‘short term gain’ oriented.
Don’t get me wrong – when Sony goes and polishes off hardware that they can’t try and lay untouchable claims to (BetaMax and BlueRay for instance) they do an outstanding job. My Sony DVD burner along with Nero is simply top-notch.
To that; I’d suspect without really reading up on it, Sony’s version will be an ‘all ages’ type of SIM. Which; for adults who are looking for a more mature world; even if it’s not just sex, a much better environment.
I’m not really knocking Sony, but…. .
Here’s what they will do:
Release the initial game. Online charges are free.
Give it a while – maybe 6, 9, 12, months. *If* the interest seems solid and they get a large enough number of sales, start releasing ‘expansions’.
But – Sony’s good with putting people in a position where; if they really want to play the ‘game’ (Sim) with their friends, they pretty much *have* to buy the expansion. I suspect they will attempt to mix this world with a PC version later on. the PC version will, of course, cost money as well – regardless if you have an existing account.
I suspect the ‘PC Version’ will allow users to make custom content past the ‘basic’ stuff they will allow in the PS3 verions. This is a double-edged axe right there. They can sell the PS3 players a ‘new expansion’ that will allow them to actually use the stuff created in the PC version. No doubt – they will let you *see the stuff* in any verion at all, but not *use it yourself* without an expansion for the PS3 or the PC verion. They may – in fact, even go a bit futher with an initial release on the PC and then a PC/PS3 expansion that allows custom content to be created and used.
I would highly suspect, custom content will only be viable to be created on the PC. There is also a very, very good chance that playing this on a PC will require a monthly ‘station pass’ subscription.
I’m sure it will be coupled with the ability to buy/sell/trade $$ and goods too, but it may well require a new expansion to be able to fully participate in the system.
I’m not being cynical – I just played Everquest for a few years, and really can’t see Sony doing business any other way.
I’m not saying they don’t have good products; just charge a bit too much for them for my tastes.
The more popular SL gets; the more Sony, Microsoft, and others will start to aspire to take over this market too.
*whew* sorry, it was a long post. But I’d suspect anyone who’s played their games for a while and took notice would have to agree. There are many ‘fanboys’ of both sides there, but I doubt many would disagree that this is all quite true.
So pick on Linden all you want – go right ahead and sign up for one of Sony’s games… just have your credit card number handy, you’ll need it, lol
Matti Deigan
Mar 8th, 2007
this is good,
If this game (that sony is making) become much more successfull it is more likely that LL will get off their butts and actually fix things in SL and improve it.
Were looking at the start of competation.
bryan campen
Mar 9th, 2007
or sony will just graft their game base over to a virtual world accessible both through the playstation and downloadable on their site and that will be that.
Nacon
Mar 9th, 2007
uhh Bryan.. you’d need a PC to make things. Sure… you can work on PS3 with Linux, but with what? Gimp and Blender? pfft.
Mako Mabellon
Mar 9th, 2007
>CronoCloud said: “Too bad Linux on the PS3 doesn’t have hardware graphics acceleration or one could try compiling the open source code on it and thus have a standard SL client.”
>There is an on-going source called “Yellow Dog Linux” and you’ll have to do some major work into the hardware to access hardware graphics acceleration support to GameOS.
Probably won’t happen – Sony never allowed Playstation 2 Linux to use hardware graphics acceleration, there’s no sign of it happening for the PS3, and since Linux is run in a hypervisor it may not have enough access to the hardware to do graphics acceleration even if someone does figure out how it works and tries to code it themselves.
Overcast:
>My Sony DVD burner along with Nero is simply top-notch.
Most of the Sony DVD burners for PCs are rebranded BenQ ones, if I remember correctly. As far as I know, they don’t actually make any themselves.
HAPPY AS CAN BE!
Mar 9th, 2007
JUST LOVE LOVE THAT SONY!!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Anonymous
Mar 13th, 2007
@Ickabod: I don’t think SL has much to worry about in terms of user base. If people wanted a dumbed down game where things were simple and had pretty graphics, they are the ones who are not going to be playing SL now, having tried it once and already given up. As such, they have not and will not contribute anything further than adding to the inflated total users count.
Elsie Broek
Dec 22nd, 2007
Well, all very nice, however it’s unlikely to make me want to run out and buy a PS3 just to play it. I’m still new to SL, and have played around a little with There. From what I’ve seen and read above, Home does seem more like There than SL.
I’m cheap. One reason I tried SL is because there’s a free basic membership (same with There) and after I upgraded from an old 133 MHz PC to a 1.8 GHz PC I was quite happy to play it. One of the neat things about SL for newbies is that there’s a lot of free stuff you can just go out and find, like clothes and object (haven’t found much like that in There, where the only free thing I got was a hover board).
I might, if I really get into SL, start buying Linden$ and maybe own some land. But, paying $600 in real $ in order to play a “free” online game, seems a trifle absurd. I suspect that the real competitor for SL, when it comes, will be some form of open-source shared platform, not another propriety system.