Die Geschichte von PS Home, oder warum es doch keine Tragik ist, dass Yoshida und nicht mehr Harrison der Chef der Sony WWS ist.
Anfangs war es nur ein Technologie-Projekt, von Gewinn hatte kein Beteiligter eine Idee:
"It was completely owned by the tech side of the business," Hill explains, recollecting his time as the regional business manager for PlayStation Home in Europe. "No-one in the rest of the business really understood what this thing was that was being developed over in Great Marlborough Street.
Nachdem Phil Harrison ging, änderte sich das:
"So it suddenly changed hands, and went from being this amorphous big platform lump over here to actually having a reason for being and having profit and loss accountability. We had to account for where all this money was being ploughed into.
Es wirkte sogar als wäre es aus Harrison's Sicht eher eine Techdemo, die zeigen sollte was man mit einem Netzwerk wie PSN anstellen kann:
Home director Peter Edward views Harrison's departure slightly differently, though. "It was certainly a turning point, yes, but I'm not sure I would necessarily say it was a setback," Edward explains. "I think during the Phil Harrison stage, the vision for Home was kind of a technical showcase of what could be done in an online environment, but that wasn't necessarily what people would actually want to do with it.
Warum die auf der GDC 2007 gezeigten Sachen nie integriert wurden (Videos & Musik teilen, Trophy-Raum):
There was no sign of the media sharing features - these fell victim to rights issues. Multiplayer game launching had to be implemented by developers on a game-by-game basis, and was therefore present for only a small selection of titles. And the individual Halls of Fame filled with 3D trophies were nowhere to be seen either.
"We had the wrong psychology. We made the assumption that we would be so compelling that everyone would want to do this. But the reality is that other people had too much work to do. Even if they come around to the idea of this being good, how do we make it easy for them to do? And that's why you never saw a trophy room."
Aktuell ist Home profitabel, aber am Beginn des Projektes wurde zuviel in das Projekt gebuttert so dass es im Endeffekt ein Minusgeschäft für Sony darstellt.
Entsprechend düster wird auch die Zukunft gesehen:
So, given the uncertainty over Home's impact on Sony's bottom line, it's little wonder that the future of the platform itself seems uncertain too. Both Oscar Clark and Daniel Hill say that they don't expect the service to make the transition to PlayStation 4. "My suspicion is that it will probably still have some kind of a life on PS3, but eventually be sunsetted in 2 or 3 years time," Hill explains.
nur der derzeitige Leiter will über die Zukunft nicht zuviel sagen.