| KBG29 said: Home is going to be a major cash cow. Sony is trying to work with as many companies as possible to turn the service into the next generation of the Internet. 1. Can you imagine if Sony had ownership of the next Internet? 2. Sony is taking all the best things about the internet and rolling them into one service, and more importantly under one username, and password. 3. The eventual goal for home for Sony from a consumer standpoint, is to allow people to buy directly from places like Nike, GAP, Warner, and basically any company that wants to joi in on the Home revenue wagon. We will be able to buy a T-shirt from GAP, and recive both a digital version for our avatar, and a physical version for our being. To me and many everyone I have showed Home to this is something they want very badly. It gives you the ease of a single login, and makes purchaseing a breeze due to skipping the regestration proccess everytime you shop somewhere new online. It also allows you to make a space that is personalized right down to the stuff you really own. Home is like Second Life, Myspace, Facebook, iTunes, World of Warcraft, Xbox Live, and the mass of the consumer side of the internet rolled into one. I think this thing is going to be very big in the news all of next year, and for many years to come afterwards. As the PS3 becomes cheaper, and more mainstream people relize the simplisity of Home, and the convinince of shopping on the service, it will start to snowball. The amount of parteners in Home will grow rapidly, and it will not take long before we have places like Gamestop, Blockbuster, Walmart, and more wanting a piece of the pie. In no time I expect to see sites like IGN, 1up, VGchartz, and more jumping in with their own spaces. 4. Home is going to become a phnomenon. |
1. I don't think it is possible to "own" the internet.
2. Reaaaaaaaaaaallly? I can go to a virtual eBay? I can play all the great internet games? I can do virtual shopping for clothes and stuff? All in Home?
3. Most people would prefer to go to a physical location and actually try the clothes on, plus avoid shipping charges. If you buy stuff solely online, you don't know if it will really fit well or not.
4. I really doubt it. It is not trying to do anything extravagantly more than what has been done before.
Seriously, a cash cow? With all the cost of development and upkeep, you really think advertising and having to buy personal virtual upgrade clothes and furniture is going to make them a mass profit? Since the majority of PS3 users are not the type that would use this new service, I don't see it helping them. I mean, what's the point of all the advertising and such, if only 5 million out of the 14 million PSN accounts ever use it much? And I don't know about you, but if it becomes something of just an advertising ploy, I think people would be turned off by this. Really, you're making Home sound like Sony is planning the next version of internet and that it will be based off of Sony's model. I don't know about you, but typing in a website address on the computer, doing a few quick clicks, and entering my information is a lot faster and easier than walking around to navigate to different locations, waiting for the increased load times, and fumbling with a controller to type and choose things.
The next big thing in virtual worlds and the internet will have to be based on human mind interaction, otherwise it would not actually show any benefits besides turning our society into anti-social, obese, lazy individuals.
Home will be a social experience that quite frankly I predict to flop. I think only a third of PS3 users will even use it much past the first week or so. People are not going to spend their hours of free time on this service when they could be using their $400 investment to play games and blu-rays like it was meant for. Mark my words, Home will not be a phenomenon; it will follow the trails of Second Life and other social worlds and eventually discontinue or lose most of its appeal. Unless they make it their next console interface that is... but then people would probably be even more turned off of Sony brand or ignore as much of it as possible so they can play games.
