I guess you guys can tell by the number of recent updates here that I am still on vacation. I really love this time of the year. Anyway, let's get back to business ;-) Yesterday Sony, namely Kaz Hirai, made a few announcements at CES 2009 that I would like to comment here.
First of all the good news about LittleBigPlanet, which obviously found already 1.3 million buyers worldwide, which includes of course the respective hardware bundles. Not that those are MGS like figures, but given the fact that LBP is a brand new IP I think this is quite an achievement for Media Molecule and Sony of course. Yes, it required a lot of marketing and in some cases price reductions on the retail side, but just keep in mind that this is a key product for Sony that eventually will define the image of the PS3 for the future. We already had a few suspected major IPs for the PS3, namely Heavenly Sword and Lair, that didn't do so well. LittleBigPlanet obviously doesn't share the same fade. As a big fan of the game I am really looking forward to see what Media Molecule is working on for their next release.
Then lets move over to Home. With yesterdays release of the Red Bull Air Race and the announcement of the EA Sports Complex it looks like we are sooner than later see what it means to have an additional platform with Home. EA Sports Complex is a huge venue that allows EA to showcase a lot of their sports related IPs as well as providing some essential mini games visitors on site.
And I am pretty sure that EA is only the first of a list of companies to show up in Home. Interesting side note: it was former archenemy Peter Moore who actually unveiled the new Home support:
We're proud to support the PlayStation Home Beta with a very robust offering from EA SPORTS. As part of our continued commitment to the connected experience and the digitization of our business, the EA SPORTS Complex is a rich new online environment that presents a compelling and immersive social gaming experience for the global sports audience.
This place seems to be so attractive for gaming companies that they can simply not ignore it. The Red Bull Air Race is another perfect example. The way how sponsering and gaming have been melted into a nice little mini game shows the potential of Home again. I am pretty sure that we will see many more of those marketing financed games in Home in the future. In a few weeks a lot of those people who currently ignore Home because of the lag of content will come back. Not being one of those typical online gamers either, I almost lost my resistance completely.
And regarding those downloads in Home, it is amazing to see how good this business model obviously works. With currently no tangible stuff to buy, people obviously spend already more than 1 million Dollars inside Home which we have to relate to the 3 million users that have downloaded Home already. Micro payments are obviously the magic bullet here. This basically mirrors the success of the PSN.
Not having seen the full picture of what Home eventually will be in the near future, I am pretty sure that both, Microsoft and Nintendo, are watching closely what Sony is doing here. You can definitely blame Sony to some extend that they have copied a lot of stuff Microsoft has done in the past when it comes to online gaming, but first of all, Sony just replicated the good stuff and second, they provided something with Home that neither Microsoft nor Nintendo can currently counter. Be sure that both are already working on something similar but Sony has a huge advantage here by being able to define what this platform will look like. Compared to Home, features like achievements and gamerscore are really peanuts.
I want to close with some comments on another platform Sony has silently established on PS3 again not showing their full potential: Life with Playstation. Let's forget about the strange for a second, but what Sony did by extending Folding@Home into a platform that can host several services, is something like Google Gadgets on PS3. I would love to see Sony opening this platform for a lot more location-based service. Not sure what's in the pipeline, but according to their annoucement there is something coming in the near future. What comes to my mind while thinking about this: why isn't Sony even joining forces with Google and bringing Google Earth onto PS3. Sure, their is some risk (hacking) attached to such an open platform, but how cool whould that be, to use Google Earth on your TV in 1080p.
One comment though again on the lousy startup speed of both Home and Life with Playstation. Sony, go and get this fixed somehow as it is not acceptable to wait more than 30 secs for such service. It is even more ridiculous that you actually have to confirm the connection to the Home service. Why do you think I got here? I don't really care what the possible solutions are, but both services must be available instantly when I need them.
Well, this was a pretty nice start into 2009 and I can already see that 2009 will definitely become a major breakthrough for Sony. Best of luck and happy new year 2009.
I guess you guys can tell by the number of recent updates here that I am still on vacation. I really love this time of the year. Anyway, let's get back to business ;-) Yesterday Sony, namely Kaz Hirai, made a few announcements at CES 2009 that I would like to comment here. 
We're proud to support the PlayStation Home Beta with a very robust offering from EA SPORTS. As part of our continued commitment to the connected experience and the digitization of our business, the EA SPORTS Complex is a rich new online environment that presents a compelling and immersive social gaming experience for the global sports audience.
