Faithful fans of Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) videogame console -- which has been playfully referred to in the past as the DelayStation -- may have to endure yet more Xbox 360 fanboy ribbing after the long-awaited Home community service this week suffered another release date stutter.
Sony imposes yet another \'quality improvement\' delay on the PlayStation 3\'s Home service. Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment.
More pointedly, Sony’s gaming division revealed yesterday that Home, the online 3D virtual world designed specifically for PlayStation 3 owners to populate with personal avatars, has been pushed back into the third quarter of 2008.
This latest setback arrives as the second notable delay to hamstring Home, which is similar in many respects to Linden Lab’s PC-based virtual world Second Life.
According to Sony, the fall delay has been implemented in order to further improve the overall quality of the Home service -- which is exactly what the Japanese consumer electronics giant said in response to the first delay.
Once available, Home will provide PS3 owners with an expansive and ambitious world where they can chat, play games, personalise their own private spaces, and even enjoy interaction with real-world entertainment media such as movie trailers and music.
“We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a bit longer,” Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai said in an official statement. “But we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today.”
Analyst reaction to the delay suggests that Sony is running the risk of having Home crumble under the weight of expectancy, with its virtual world similarities to Second Life and lack of obvious innovation perhaps likely to leave end users somewhat under whelmed when it does finally launch.
“This delay won’t be a problem if it helps them offer something epoch-making, something totally different from the rest,” commented Okasan Securities senior analyst Masashi Morita in a Reuters report. “I don’t get the impression that ‘Home’ is something drastically new. There may be something hidden that is amazing, but I can’t spot it at the moment.”
Sony’s latest polish-fuelled delay to Home could well prove vitally important in the long term however, not least because the PlayStation 3 is still trailing the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360 in total unit sales. Moreover, Sony really does need to counter the online spread of Xbox Live and the demographic-busting originality of the Nintendo Wii with something it can truly call its own within the videogame industry.
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