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.

>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.

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

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

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.