This is a product that is currently in closed beta and with a TBA release date. Quite a few specific details about it are available at Welcome">http://kotaku.com/5072907/welcome-home-hanging-out-playstation-style]Wel... Home: Hanging Out PlayStation Style (WARNING: this is on a gaming related website but I could not find anything else that had a lot of these details), with information such as:
Quote:... theyaEU(tm)ve made an entire virtual world thataEU(tm)s supposed to bring your gaming, your music, your movies and even your sense of style all together in one place. This is definitely a step up from the Mii Plaza.
Also, the Wikipedia article at PlayStation">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Home]PlayStation Home has information such as its history (including that its launch has already been delayed a few times) and some other details about it such as:
Quote:Photographs and video released by Sony show Home users meeting in a plaza/town square type of area. They also show users in their own apartments with their own choice of decor and furnishings. Users can also invite other users to their apartments.
In the world outside of the player houses, players can meet and chat with other community-members. One can invite their friends, hang out and communicate via voice chat, or normal text chat, listen to music, play a game or exchange content. People who enter each other's "home" (called a "HomeSpace") can stream the host's music and videos from their HDD. Videos are viewed via virtual Sony TVs, such as the BRAVIA. Photographs can be viewed via a virtual picture frame.
Every user has a private apartment space that they can modify and change over time. The basic apartment is free and will offer users lots of options for customization and personalization. In the future, Sony will provide tools that will enable users to have an even greater ability to create their own Home spaces and content.
and
Quote:The world of PlayStation Home will not only consist of players' houses, but there will also be arcade-games that can be played, as well as games like pool billiards and bowling.
Although this sounds a lot of like Second Life, and other such programs, it seems that Sony is trying to incorporate your real life aspects, such as your music, video and games, into their virtual world, that I don't believe these other programs do, or at least do very well (please correct me if I am wrong). My concern is that Sony is helping to further blur the distinction between a virtual life and real life, to the detriment of people, in particular addicts, that are already having trouble telling the two apart, especially in terms of living in the real world instead of a virtual one.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)
Playstation Home is a pick up place online. It is like a town where people meet up. Mall, bowling alley, apartment, etc. It is a place where people chat. It begins innocently enough but then you can add people to your friends list and send personal messages between you that the other people playing cannot see. It is transporting people from the real world and it is making their virtual world seem real. Often times personal information is exchanged. A person who is an addicted video gamer can easily get swallowed up in this world. Very sad.
It sounds A LOT like Second Life to me. Sounds like more refugees will be making their way here to this site. I don't quite understand it, but the virtual world addiction seems to suck some people in who don't normally get sucked into game addiction. I never really played games very much at all, rarely really. It just never had that much appeal to me. However, Second Life's virtual world social component really got me. I'm sure this may be a danger to people who casually play on the Playstation. Suddenly they may find themselves addicted to it, even though in the past they were able to handle just playing games. It is indeed sad.
Addicted to SL
Its the Elf-Orc thing. Some people who wouldn't be caught dead playing in a virtual world with Elves and Orcs don't think of things like Second Life as a game, because its not marketed as one. So they get sucked in and in recovery, an ex-Elf mage and an ex-Second Life coffeehouse manager might have a lot more in common than they once thought they ever would... Its not like Sony doesn't know anything about marketing virtual worlds, Everquest is still out there after all...
Leveling in Real Life
No Way! I thought it all fell appart, crashed and burned after I left !!! ;) . 8)
" ... don't question it just go" "... where the body goes the mind will follow"
.
Borrowed from "Desire to Stop"
I think Everquest is probably starting to look its age, just like the rest of us. ;)
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Page 3 of the article at Interview: Peter Dille Says Publishers are 'Fired Up' for PlayStation (WARNING: This is at a pro-gaming Website) says:
Getting 4 million users in the fairly short time that this has been out is quite amazing! Also, due to the likely large number of very short visits skewing the average, I suspect that there are already quite a few people who spend many hours at a time on this new site. As they add "new services and new spaces", my concern is that it will become, like sladdiction in Reply #2 says, similar to that of Second Life and we will start seeing many people coming here to get help with spending excessive time on PlayStation Home.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)
It is actually my spouse who is the video game addict. He was spending more than 8 hours each evening on Playstation Home, exchanging cell phone numbers with women and carrying the game a little too far. The people he met on this game became his real world and his family is an afterthought. When I get him to stop playing the game, he actually has physical withdrawal symptoms.........constant sleeping, aches and pains, etc. He cannot stop longer than 5 or 6 days. He has now deleted that game from the system but replaced it with another while seriously still neglecting his family. My husband is 47 years old and is causing great pain to his child because of video games. We are out of here soon because it is detrimental to my child's well-being and my child must come first with at least one parent.
PLEASE HELP...
My husband spends 5+ hours a night, several nights a week on PS Home. He also plays while I am at work. He has clubs and lots of personal spaces (like virtual homes or apartments) and clothing - all of these virtual items cost money. He often uses a female avatar and 'flirts' with men and women - although I have no idea how far this has gone (PG 13, R or X???). We rarely go to bed together and when we do he isn't interested in being intimate (or even holding me for that matter). When we are intimate, he is not really engaged in the moment.
When he isn't in the PS Home environment, he is searching and reading the forums on their website (while I watch TV). Most of our conversations (which has become minimal) is him talking about PS Home until I checkout of the conversation.
He has shown signs of addiction and will even admit that it is addicting and he enjoys it. He never sees his friends, has stopped all activities that are not necessary and just waits for me to go to bed so that he can play on Home. He has tried to stop and when he isn't playing or reading the forums, he is agitated, annoyed or just zombie like. For example, we will go to the store and he will be agitated the entire time. He doesn't appear to enjoy real life in any meaningful way.
I am pregnant and we are expecting our new baby any day now. I am so worried about his addiction and the impact it will have on our family (not to mention our relationship). I am also feeling incredibly lonely and isolated. I feel like I need him more now that ever and I am losing him more and more each day. I love him and care about our relationship. What can I / should I do?
real_life, I am so sorry to read about your predicament with your husband. I recommend that you post your story in a new thread in the I Need Help for Spouses/Significant Others forum so that other members can respond specifically to your story and concerns. Also, you should read through some of the stories in that forum and in those of the other forums in the OLG-Anon (Family/Friends) Message Boards section.
My only particular piece of advice is that, since your husband admits that it is addicting, you may want to recommend that he comes to this site to at least read through some of the posts in the OLGA (Recovering Gamer) Message Boards section, such as in the I Need Help for Gamers forum. He may recognize himself in some of the stories and, hopefully, decides that he needs to get help, such as by counseling, from using the tools of this site and by doing anything else that he needs to do to become a proper husband and father.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)
Thanks John - I will repost my note in a new thread where you have suggested. I appreciate your suggestion that I recommend he come to this website. It's worth a shot and it can't hurt. Thanks again.
Another stage in Home's progress is described in Sony Computer Entertainment America Broadens PlayStation(R)Home 3D Gaming Experience With Launch of Unprecedented MMO Space where it discusses
This first MMO is in addition to the over 100 games that were already available. The new game has many levels, with the first 5 being free. With a name like "Sodium One", it seems that they are preparing for future versions called "Sodium Two", "Sodium Three", etc., in addition to possibly launching other completely different MMO's.
- John O.
[em]Carpe Diem![/em] (Seize the Day!)