[Rud31]

I hear Sony won't kill your neighbor's dog if you ask them to.
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[tacotaskforce]

[Gorblax]

Don't forget about this project, Lainer!
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[exodus]

tacotaskforce person - I logged in for the first time in like a year to tell you this is one of the most interesting things I have looked at in some time, please do more. I am especially curious to know how home is now, so long after they were really pumping stuff into it.

also, I'd like to see the asian spaces you mentioned.

more please!!!!!!!!!!!
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[Adilegian]

TTF/Lainer, we could stream some PS Home sometime. Do you have a mic that would let you Skype while PS3ing?
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[boojiboy7]

SB Home Meetup?

[Adilegian]

[boojiboy7]

Sunday is probably the best for me, but if other people want saturday, that can happen as well.

[Gorblax]

Make sure to take pictures. I really favor the travelogue format.
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[exodus]

I prefer it as well!
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[Toups]

home valentine's date
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[tacotaskforce]

Oh my, one of my abandoned projects.

Yeah, I have enough pics on my HDD for two more updates, at least. And I have too much time to myself tomorrow.
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[tacotaskforce]

Like the PSN Store, Home is segregated into four major regions: The Americas, Europe, Japan, and Hong Kong. Each region has mostly the same areas, but each also has unique ones for games/movies/whatever that aren't available in other regions. Japan/HK and US/EU also have radically different Central Plazas.

The Asian one is HUGE. I imagine they condensed it for the west to make Home seem more populated, but the Japanese square, as large as it is, usually has a fair number of people milling about. Many will be in full costume, posing for the others who are taking screencaps. After the Home 2.0 rollout the Japanese spaces remained unchanged, probably because Japan doesn't really care for Home games but loves Home costumes.

These shots came from new years 2010, when the whole central square was done up for the holiday. I didn't make it back there in 2011 or 2012 to see if they did this again. The next time I went to the japanese Home they were advertising Macross F with a life-size Valkyrie.

This is an area exclusive to the HK Home, a fact the room's description states several times in bold letters. See, you may be paying a premium for games and waiting months later for them to come out and there may only be like three total Cantonese language games on the PS Store, but we still care about you so much we gave you your own Home space.

I've never seen another soul in this space. You can play chess though.

Here's the only irem space to survive the company's purge of all evidence they were ever a respectable developer of games that people liked. It's not large, just half an alley with the pachinko parlor, a clothing store, and a yakisoba joint, but it looks about as nice as most of their other spaces.

No minigames or rewards either, which all of their other spaces did have. I suppose their pachinko fans are used to paying out the nose for everything.

And here's where we get sad again when we remember irem did cool stuff once. This R-Type zone was also exclusive to asian territories, but like all HK spaces it's been translated completely into english. You could wander around the hangar and bridge, check out the store to buy ship statues or R-Type games, or play the space's minigame. Sadly the Home update that allowed you to take screenshots while playing a minigame came long after these spaces were delisted.

If you want to see what it was like you could PM Simon Belmont. After he finishes weeping he'll send you a youtube link of the R-9 flying through rings like it was Superman 64.

The reward for flying through those rings, however, was this rad ass kimono and spaceship hat combo.

Next stop: Toro Town. I think this space uses all the same assets as Weekly Toro Station, and although you can't go inside any of the houses it still looks nice. It even has information on all the Toro characters so that you can amaze your friends with Toro trivia. You can also take a picture with the always photogenic Toro.

I only found out this week that Weekly Toro Station is going to be closing soon. I'm not sure when; an article on siliconera says march but the program itself says next week. I have a ton of screenshots from that too, so I'll write up a bit for it next time.

The last of my irem shots, this was the infamous Semifinalist Fantasia, or what was left of it anyways. I remember seeing shots of a town and beach, but back when I went looking all I could find was this castle siege map. If you ran down to the monsters you'd activate the minigame, and you could earn money by defeating monsters. You could then spend that money on weapons, armor, and items, all of which you could wear as clothing on your avatar. There were also very few items available when I looked, and all of them fairly expensive. It was possible to defeat a few enemies with the starter equipment, however, so with enough tenacity you could purchase high level equipment without have paid anything. This is a strategy Granzella would later reconsider for their games.

This Namco arcade space used to be exclusive to asia, but some time ago they rolled it out worldwide. They even left the im@s drink machines, which lead to dozens, perhaps tens of dozens, of potential western im@s fans clinging to their false hopes in vain. After winning a possibly random skillgame the vending machine will spit out im@s sodas for your apartment or im@s costume pieces. I've seen people running around in a full set (and you will too when I get to my Dead Island image set) but those seem to come up very rarely.

That's enough for this update. Next time: Japan's PlayStation Home For Cats!
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[exodus]

I like this so much. thank you for continuing it. I will probably never visit the thing on my own, and I certainly can't go back to 2010, so this is interesting. At some point after your next update it'd be great to see a comparison to what it's like now...
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[Ymer]

Love this. Can't help but think "Why?" and "How?" as I read it though. Oh, Sony...

[luvcraft]

[tacotaskforce]

I am slowly discovering that the worst part of the current Home is how hard it is to take screenshots of. There's a really nice looking Journey Home space that I can't take any screenshots of because the entire space is considered a minigame. It also doesn't paint a particularly appealing portrait of of the game since Home supports neither jumping nor running.
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[dementia]

Any caps of yesterday's PS4 reveal theater in Home? Apparently they streamed it there?

[tacotaskforce]

They just did it in a standard theater room, not a custom space. It seems like in the west they'll only make custom spaces for E3.
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[Gorblax]

Lainer would you be interested in doing this kind of travelog for all kinds of different MMO spaces? Because some publication should definitely pay you to do that.
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[tacotaskforce]

Considering how my PC can't run much more than youtube I don't think it would be possible for me to do that. Doing some documentation of all those freemium MMOs out there would be fun, though.
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[Gorblax]

That's kind of exactly what I was thinking of, really. Nobody wants to read another WoW article.
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[tacotaskforce]

Released at almost the same time as PlayStation Home, Weekly Toro Station is basically the exact same thing, but with cats. This was not the first nor will it be the last time Sony has multiple internally developed services that serve the same purpose.


In a few ways Toro Station is better than PS Home. It has plenty of ludicrous costume and decoration options, but unlike PS Home its possible to show off your costume and the decorations in your own personal space to complete strangers. Toro Station also has new weekly content that people who don't give a damn about its virtual world can still enjoy.


Weekly Toro Station starts out with Toro being forcibly evicted from the house she lived in during Everyday Toro by you, the PSN account owner. Out on her own, Toro puts up a cardboard wall in an empty lot and begins hosting Weekly Toro Station in the hopes that you will be entertained enough to buy her a new house. That house costs $8 a month, by the way.


This is Toro's lot as it looked the last time I logged on, decorated with items I've gotten from some of the weekly segments. SEGA and small publishers like Gust and Aquire were usually the best at giving away free stuff, while companies like Konami and Bamco never gave away a damn thing without making you pay for it. Starting on the left I have a 7th Dragon 2020 standee, a Siren New Translation poster, an Atelier Totori poster, a Valkyria 3 figurine, a gamebox for Little Battlers, another Siren poster, art from Nomura and whoever does Blaz Blu's designs, and a third Siren poster. They gave away a ton of free Siren stuff. This was what my hovel looked like the first day I logged onto Toro Station back during new years 2010. I think those are all new years cards from all of the Toro supporting cast.


Every week there would be new segments, and most of them can be watched by free users. The main one is always about a new video game, like Dynasty Warriors 7 here. In these segments Toro, Kuro, and some of the supporting cast will either put on a play based on the game, interview characters from the game, or both. Despite having limited resources they usually manage pretty well, and I wish I knew enough japanese to understand them.


In addition to that Toro and Kuro would also go around to tourist attractions around Japan or interview pop stars. All these segments would even use music from the games or artists. Finally there would be shorter segments where you could see short bits about some new show coming out or some new thing you could buy in the game.


Every once in awhile there'll be a really great free item, like this Valkyrie costume, but mostly they just give you coins for buying stuff.


Purchasing decorations for Toro's home is done via the Myaile Department Store, although there's not much you can access with a free account. Every item on that list with a green creditcard requires a subscription to be able to purchase. And if you were hoping to pick up some Miku gear for your home well you're flat out of luck because you can't just buy those.


You have to go to the arcade and get them the old fasioned way: via a capsule machine.


These also require a subscription to purchase. What doesn't require a subscription are the arcade machines themselves; hell, they even pay you. If you win. And the pay out is so low it would take you about an hour to get enough coins to get one try at one of the free capsule machines. And the pay out on those is even worse.


Still, the games are kind of fun. They're video poker, snake, bowling, kart racing, a scrolling shooter, and more! (three more). I'm... really bad at bowling.


Beyond that you'll have to find your fun from user generated stuff. First up is the Nyavatar Collection, where you can see the effort other people put into their furry personas. These cats are much better dressed than the majority of PS Home people I've seen.


After that You can go wandering around random players' front yards. I've seen a lot of weird stuff going through here, and I didn't take screenshots of half of it. The shrink ray is a pretty popular fixture for yards because it lets people cram even more crap in there. And then some people just plaster posters over every valid surface. I wonder if perhaps this is what most Otaku houses would look like unrestrained by physics or sense.


Sadly Weekly Toro is coming to an end now, and seems like it'll be shut down entirely in June. I imagine a similar fate will befall Home one day too, so this is the message I leave for future generations so that they know we were here.


Toro, meanwhile, will be moving over to Friend Network on the Vita, which sounds like it's a Facebook app version of Animal Crossing. I think she's going to do just fine.


Next time: The DEATH & REBIRTH of PlayStation Home!
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[Talbain]

You know, if Home were less intentional, it could be the user-generated LSD.
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[CubaLibre]

[tacotaskforce]

Bonus! I couldn't really find a place to put it in, but I love Toro Station's 'technical difficulties' sign.


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[108]

this thread is so great T-T

when i was at sony, they were throttling the home project to try to have it out in time for the PS3 launch. of course that was impossible.

it makes me really sad to see the toro stuff. toro could have been The Future of playstation 3. toro should have been The Biggest Thing. instead it was just A Little Thing.

they did get toro out in time for the launch! and man, toro was so great. i kept thinking it was the future of videogames. sadly, i still sort of do. one day before new year's i went over to the section that handled the toro updates. i was like, "hey, i just wanted to come by here and say that i think your stuff is cool." they were like, "thanks!" and that was it. so ends my story
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[boojiboy7]

[Gironika]

[exodus]

just saying again that this is the best and thank you for doing it.
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[Rud31]

The best part of Toro Mainichi-Issho (and i assume Torostation) was the weather reflected the weather in Tokyo at that very second. That was really cool.

Also it was amazing they were making content every day for it.

Toro being out on the street was too depressing, so I never visited ToroStation.

I think there is a Mainichi-isshou thread that's right here!
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[DecentBee]

Using my first post of the decade to say this thread is rad.

[Iacus]

This is very cool.

Looking forward to the ReBirth update!
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Guayaba 2600

[psiga]

I don't even know how I ended up on this thread, but it was a wonderful thing to see. This really caught my attention:

[Gorblax]

http://kotaku.com/playstation-home-now-lets-you-give-out-creepy-hugs-1566548962
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[bza]

you know what you have to do now, lainer

you know.
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[tacotaskforce]

Just so you know i have enough screenshots on my PS3 to make about four more updates, but my PS3 is now in Chico while my living situation is in flux, so any new releases will not be happening in the forseeable future.
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[tacotaskforce]

[The Blueberry Hill]

:)

[Family Computer]

I hope they announce a next gen Home for PS4. I feel like I missed out on this from looking at these photos.
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This summer, become Buried In Games.