I really think that Sony needs to market the fact that it's not a game and focus more on the enhancements they're making to their online system with Home rather than putting a lot of attention on the customizable people and apartments which seems to be where I see quite a bit of the negativity.

I mean, it looks to me like they're trying to unify their online system with Home which is what everybody has been pushing them to do. Stuff like in-game XMB for messages and such, partying up so people can play as a group, trophies, ect are all things that they're bringing with Home and yet (to me) it feels like people are overlooking that and focusing all of their hate on the visual representation of it.

It may not be a complete selling point, but I think it's something to compliment all of the other features of the PS3.

NOT thx for posting this crap

THX for having choosen a more adapted thread title

...

kotaku has used the word "hatin" ( funny how they are biased )

At max, only 35% of the people "dislike such service" ("dislike", not "hate")
and 27% are still interested to "trying it out"

For what I think, 90% of the PS2 userbase, and 80% of the actual PS3 userbase dont even know the existence of Home for the PS3. It is maybe a bit early to make such survey.

oh! another question. anyone have an estimate of how much money sony has put into developing this?

It would seem to me that this interface had to cost quite a bit of money in development. And it's a free download so the only way to recoup money is to have it as a selling point for console sales. If overall people aren't interested in Home the question "was it worth it?" comes to mind. So anyone have a ballpark figure for development costs?

No, but I'm sure there will be lots of advertisements. Sony even mentioned areas in Home where game developers and advertisers can create an area to market their product and maybe even give out branded items that you can equip on your character or use to decorate your apartment.

I honestly DON'T care about Home either. I find it a total waste of time and money, which better could be spend on games.

i think HOME is pretty useless, they should focus on improving their online service instead

 lol, that's sort of what Home is.

Looks like the people interviewed had an immediate "that sounds incredibly nerdy! take it away from me!" knee-jerk reaction. Might be more a case of poorly worded questions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't end up being popular.

I continue to fail at understanding Japanese gamers, but it would seem like they just don't see any appeal in making their own character. Games with lots and lots of premade characters like Final Fantasy are great, but putting yourself in the game world isn't appealing at all. A gross simplification of course, but it doesn't completely fall apart, now that I think of it more. =/

Personally, I'm not into this whole virtual world social network malarkey, but I'm pretty sure that Home will be a hit. If 10% of PS3 owners use the service regularly, it will be on par with Second Life, the largest and most successful virtual world currently available.

With Sony's multiple business arms, they have the potential to offer a lot more content than the competition, and Home is also unlikely to carry the stigma of being a nerd-fest as much as SL.

I also expect it to be quite lucrative for Sony. It will certainly open up plenty of new revenue streams, and the selling of "virtual real estate" has to be one of the most perfect business models ever created, as it is essentially money for nothing.

from the start and to this day i still think home is nothing more then a supp'd up 2nd Life