PlayStation Home revealed (from MS newsgroup) – Good news for the PlayStation camp, full details of Sony’s PlayStation Home have been revealed, and it ain’t no slacker. Alongside those avatars and achievements we heard about earlier, the “service” seems to be a new-gen Second Life killer, with public hangouts, personal apartments (to show off those fancy prizes you’ve been racking up in recent frag fests) and voice chat. The seeming-MMO even includes casual games such as pool, bowling and arcade machines embedded into the world, but at any time you can invite a fellow resident to join in on any PlayStation Network-capable game. I was pretty amazed at what PlayStation Home was. As a online game match setup mediator, I personally don’t think it works that well, but like Second Life and other MMO (massive multiple player) games, I’ve always considered it as a social chatroom.
Of course, Sony’s going to charge an arm and a leg for this. The joining aspect might be free, but to purchase real estate, to furnish your home, to purchase clothes that match your style, is going to cost you.
I personally am not a big MMO fan as I don’t really see a point in it. It’s like why would I want to furnish a virtual house, when I could be using that money to furnish my real house. But the concept is still pretty cool in my opinion.
They had a small demo where you can play music and everyone that’s around you would be able to listen. That got me thinking. When these people chat, you see dialog boxes like comic strips pop up on top of them. With Xbox Live, practically everyone has a headset/microphone. How cool would it be, instead of chatting, you could hear everyone around you?
Of course, there’s going to be settings you can customize, like if you want to only be able to hear friends or hear everyone around you, how far you want to be able to listen, how far you want your voice to broadcast, if you only want friends or everyone to be able to hear you, etc. For example, I could set that I want to hear everyone around me within a 5ft radius and I want my voice to travel also a 5ft radius, that way everyone that’s within 5ft of me will be able to hear what I’m saying.
If you’re in a park, you’ll hear the birds flutter and chirp, little kids having fun, basically background noise. Then you have your circle of friends and you’re just chatting. The voice will also be directional, so if Tim was on my right, his voice would mostly be coming out from my right speaker. Multiple people can speak at once also so you can really have a conversation going. Hehe. I might’ve taken this tangent a little too far.
Random Crap:
Geometry Wars (from MS newsgroup) is available to be downloaded for the PC. Interestingly enough the game is 61.5MB, a lot bigger than the Xbox Live Arcade counterpart. If you want the full version, it also costs $7.95, about $3 more than what it would could via Xbox Live Arcade (which is 400pts = $5, and if you can get a deal on points, you can get it for cheaper). Geometry Wars is rather fun and it’d be interesting controlling it with the keyboard/mouse. I tend to be more accurate with the keyboard rather than the joystick.
Meat-loving calf eats chickens (from MS newsgroup) – But Ajit Ghosh, the owner of the missing chickens, eventually solved the puzzle when he caught his cow — a sacred animal for the Hindu family — gobbling up several of them at night. … “The local vets said the cow was probably suffering from a disease but others said Lal was a tiger in his previous birth,” Ajit added.
Tofu Thriller Dance (from MS newsgroup) – A pretty cool 3d animation video of Tofu The Vegan Zombie dancing and singing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
aPhone by Microsoft (from MS newsgroup) – a parody of Microsoft coming out with a product to compete against Apple’s iPhone.
japanese 5 year old kid playing ddr! awesome (from MS newsgroup) – founded in the net… awesome 5 year old kid playing ddr!! gotta watch!! he’s so cute playing it XD Ryota’s name reminds me of the shy little boy from At Home Dad. Anyway, this little boy’s amazing on the DDR pad. After he wins, he even goes announce to his mom he got an AA score. Very cute.
RvD2: Ryan vs. Dorkman 2 (from RayAlome) – The hotly-anticipated sequel to the original YouTube phenomenon. Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement. Send this video to all your friends! High-quality version available at stage6.divx.com. YouTube messed up the sound mix so the quality is better all-around on Stage 6. Their light saber battles have always been interesting. You can visit their homepage too. Do be warned, the higher quality version is 430MB.
SinFest – The Next Step in Evolution – the dog and cat are always so cute, but another proof that cats are evil.
Entertainment Savers Guide (from SD) – Register at the SaversGuide for access to hundreds of discounts. Save at restaurants, hotels, retailers, attractions and more! … Your registration is valid for one year. A pretty slick deal. Go and print coupons from the Entertainment booklet for FREE. I was looking at movie tickets and you can pre-order a bunch for $5-6, which is a very good deal.
Illinois Man Fined Thousands And Threatened With Felony Prosecution For Using Untaxed Biodiesel (from Digg) – David Wetzel, a 79 yr old retired chemist from Decatur IL had been using recycled vegetable oil in his 1985 Volkswagen Golf diesel car for 7 years. This January, ” the State of Illinois Dept. of Revenue sent 2 “special agents,” Gary May and John Egan to his house. The two agents threatened the couple with felony charges and asked them to post a $2,500 bond!” Sigh…