Insomniac’s James Stevenson says Sony Japan is taking user feedback onboard from the US and EU now, around ”two years ago” that didn’t feel the case. PSN is listening more.
Meanwhile is seems that PlayStation Home is no longer the prodigal project it once was, as boss Pete Edwards reveals its ”not a priority right now” at the London Games Conference.
”The challenge has always been that the operating system (XMB) has always been developed in Japan, and at first it didn’t seem like it reacted to the US and European markets,” community manager Stevenson for PS3 developer Insomniac told CVG.
”But now it seems like there’s a far better feedback loop in place, which I think was the biggest issue.”
”The example that stands out was when they did the update to the look of the XMB - version 3.0 I think. They boxed out everyone’s names and it became really clunky-looking and the community started complaining. I feel like that feedback really made it over to Japan, and that’s something they’re trying to get addressed,” he explained.
”Two years ago, or a year-and-a-half ago, I don’t feel like there was that kind of response. I now really think that the development group that’s working on PSN is really listening to the community more, and listening to development feedback. So that’s a good thing in the long term, and that was the biggest thing I’m glad to see has been fixed.”
Perhaps that community feedback is responsible for the shift in enthusiasm from Sony over the development of PlayStation Home, which is something they’ve been touting for ages.
”It’s been a long road,” said PS Home director Pete Edwards at the London Games Conference.
”We’ve proved there is a market out there and we’ve got a lot of people that spend a lot of time” in Home, he continued. ”It’s not a priority right now but there is a business model there.”
Are they pulling a sly admittance of defeat here? PlayStation Home has been nothing short of a glorified social experiment for the platform holder, with a number of virtual storefronts popping up and other companies injecting their presence - but really, what is Home?
Sony don’t seem so sure on their own answer anymore…
Source: VG247
