Video: PlayStation Home v1.3 Coming Thursday to PS3 & More!

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Category: PS3 Online

Today PlayStation Home Online Community Specialist Locust_Star has unveiled that PlayStation Home v1.3 will be coming Thursday, which includes a new Central Plaza, Neptune Suite and more as follows:

We know that all of our Home-peoples have been waiting with bated breath for the newest version of PlayStation Home to launch. You’ve been messaging us on the official PlayStation Home forums and hitting us up in-world for all of the details.

You’ve been leaving us comments on our Blog posts and on the official PlayStation Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some of you have even been chartering black helicopters and following us to and from our secret meetings, surveilling our every move, searching for evidence of the launch date.

Well okay, maybe there hasn’t been so much of that, but you’ve been eager for info. And that’s why we’re all pumped to announce that PlayStation Home v1.3 will be coming to your PlayStation 3s this Thursday, October 1st.

For those of you who didn’t catch the official announcement of the client update in August, here’s the high-level overview. Home v1.3 equals the following things:

• Universal Game Launching. Come this Thursday, you’ll be able to launch from Home into any game whose disc you have loaded into your PS3. This is how it works: Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, MotorStorm, and Far Cry 2) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar’s head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in.
Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease. Never again will you have to sign out of Home to play with (or against) your friends. Simply insert the disc of your choice while in Home and follow the on screen directions.

• In-Store Item Previewing. This feature will allow you to preview items of clothing on your character in 3D (including the ability to check out multiple items simultaneously to see what combinations best suit your taste). You’ll be able to preview all furniture in 3D as well, complete with zoom and rotate options so you can check your potential purchases from all angles.

• New Emotes and Actions. You can flip a coin with your friends to decide whose apartment to retreat to, or play the old “pick a number between 1 and 100” game to decide who is hosting the next party in Central Plaza. You will also be able to pose your avatar in a variety of ways, adding significantly to your ability to express yourself in-world. Heck, there are even new dances to hit the SingStar Rooms with.

• More Item Types. Including limited use items (like the brand new Shrink Cake that lets you shrink your avatar to a tiny size) and portable objects (think: Bubble Machine). These will be available shortly after the launch of the client. This list of objects includes a free camera that you can use to snap pictures from either a 1st or 3rd person view.

The photos will automatically be saved to the Photo section of the XMB, from which you can then upload to the picture frames you have hanging in your personal spaces. Dates for the camera and other items will be announced very soon, so stay tuned to this blog (and be sure to check the Latest Updates tab in your Menu Pad, under Community).

• Tons of Improvements. We’ve added some new categories of clothing (composite and outfits) that will allow you to customize your avatar with greater ease. We’ve optimized the targeting system. We’ve fixed a bunch of the bugs you’ve been reporting on the official Home Support forum. We’re even giving you the option to determine your cache size (you can choose from 3, 5, 8, and 12 GB).

Going hand in hand with the v1.3 launch, we here at SCEA will be releasing an updated Central Plaza. We think you’ll find the new World Map Travel Center to be quite handy when it comes to navigating the vast, expansive world of PlayStation Home. This easy-to-use tool will be located right next to the new and improved Listen@Home kiosk, where you can listen to music and participate in community music events.

On top of all this, we’ve added leaderboards and rewards to the ever-popular Saucer Pop mini-game and even placed a kiosk in Central Plaza from which you can grab prizes associated with events and a host of other items and content available from the PlayStation Network (in fact, if you check out this kiosk on launch day, you may just find some free items waiting for you). Watch the video below for a sneak peek of some of the new additions to CP.

We probably could’ve stopped there, but we wanted to get as much content to you to celebrate this momentous occasion as we possibly could. If you peep the video below you can get a first look at the new Neptune Suite personal space, also being released this Thursday. In this highly-interactive underwater abode, you can play a variety of built-in mini-games like the multi-player shooter Blast Zone. It even comes with its own pet that interacts with your avatar.

And to top it all off, we’re even bringing the popular Hot Shots Golf game space over from Japan for all of you North American fans of this hugely popular franchise. Visit the space this Thursday, participate in our in-world survey, and walk away with a special prize. See you in Home!

Finally, the PS Home v1.3 Changelog is detailed below:

PlayStation Home v1.3 Client Update Notes

New features

* Universal Game Launching
o You can now Game Launch any title from Home.
+ There are two categories of titles you can launch from Home – simplified and full.
# Titles with full Game Launching support are now listed in separate sections of the Menu Pad, and are represented by separate icons to make the difference clear.
# With simplified game launching, you will be limited in terms of multiplayer options that you can specify in Home. However, you can still select these options from the front end of the game that you launch into.
o You can attach comments to your Game Launching session that other players can read before joining.
+ Comments can be a maximum of 16 characters at the moment.
o Because so many more games will now trigger Game Launching we’ve changed it so that the Game Launching alert will only appear if you insert the disc while in Home, not if you just have the disc in when starting Home.

* In-Store Item Previews
o You can now preview items of clothing on your character in 3D.
+ This includes the ability to preview multiple items of clothing at the same time and see what different combinations look like.
+ The items you are previewing can be reset back to normal by pressing [SQUARE].
o You can also preview items of furniture in 3D.
o The preview is available when viewing the details of a particular item; after a short pause it will automatically replace the thumbnail image.
o You can rotate and zoom your view once the preview is active.

* Item Options
o Rentable items can be rented from the store for a set period of time.
+ You can see the start and end date for a rentable item in the “About” section for that item.
+ You will be warned with an alert message 24 hours before the period of use on a rentable item expires.
+ Rentable items can be renewed from the original store in which you got them or directly from the Menu Pad.
o Limited use items are purchased with “uses” from the store (like tokens) which are consumed when the item is activated.
+ You can see how many uses of a limited use item are left in the “About” section for that item.
+ You can acquire more uses of an item from the original store in Home or directly from the Menu Pad.
o Portable items are objects that you carry around with you, like the Bubble Machine, Camera, and Shrink Potion. Dates and details regarding these items will be announced shortly.
o Portable items have a label above them displaying the name of the item and the name of the owner. There is a toggle in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Personal > Portable Items” where portable item labels can be turned on or off.
o There are additional options to control the display of portable items:
+ Portable items can be hidden individually by selecting “Hide” from the action menu of each item. There is also a hide option in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Personal > Portable Items.”
+ The Home Safe Screen (accessible by pressing [SELECT]) has an option to hide all portable items in that space.
+ Ignoring someone in Home will hide any portable items they have active and stop you from seeing any other ones they might put out while you’re both in the same space.
+ Adding someone to your PSN block list will permanently hide all portable items owned by that person.
o To help organise your purchases there is a new section of the Menu Pad under “Personal > My Purchases” that lists and categorizes all of the items you have bought.
o There is also a new system for managing your portable items in the Menu Pad under “Personal > Inventory”. You can find more information about an item, as well as deactivate it, via this menu.

* New Emotes
o We have added new Emotes that will expand your ability to express yourself in Home. These include:
+ Action emotes. These are available under the “Action” section of the emote menu. There are currently two examples:
# Flip a coin and report whether you got heads or tails in local text chat.
# Thinks of a number between 1 – 100 and report the result in local text chat.
+ Poses. These are emotes that your character will perform and hold until you move or select another emote. These are available under the “Pose” section of the emote menu. Note: Male and female characters have different poses available.
+ New seating options. There are two additional male emotes for sitting on the floor available under the “Sit down” section of the emote menu.
+ Revised emotes for “Shy” and “Giggle”.

General Improvements

* Cache Size
o There is now an option to change how much disc space is used to cache data in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Change Cache Size”.
o Currently you can choose between 3, 5, 8 and 12 GB.
o The more disc space you allocate the less need there is to re-download data once the cache fills up.
o When running Home for the first time you now have the option to specify how much disc space Home may use to cache data.

* Advanced Targeting System
o Different types of target are now ‘weighted’ so you can more easily target the things you want to interact with (such as games or screens).
o The system now takes much greater account of what the camera is looking at when deciding what you are trying to target.
o If you are having trouble targeting something you can more easily re-target to it using left and right on the d-pad or left stick.

* Pool Improvements
o When lining up a shot you can now raise or lower the cue by moving up or down on the left stick.
o You can also put spin on the cue ball by pressing [CIRCLE] when lining up a shot and then moving the striking position around with the left stick.
+ Strike lower on the cue ball for back spin, higher for top spin and to the left or right for side spin.

* Queuing
o You can now queue up to play any occupied game that supports queuing.
+ You can only queue for one game at a time. If you join the queue for another game you will leave your current queue.
+ When the game becomes free people waiting to play will be given the chance to play in the order they queued. If you miss your turn to join the game or leave the instance, you will be removed from the queue.
+ While queuing for one game, you can still play other games in the space if they are available.
+ You can check which game you are queued for and your position in the queue under the “Queues” section of the Menu Pad. You can also choose to leave the queue from here as well.
+ You can check which game you are queued for and your position in the queue under the “Queues” section of the Menu Pad. You can also choose to leave the queue from here as well.

* Clothing Options
o We have added a Composite clothing items category.
+ These are items of clothing that fill more than one ‘slot’ at the same time (for example a jumpsuit might cover your torso and legs).
+ They are accessible from the menus for any of the slots that they fill (for example the jumpsuit would be accessible from both the torso and legs menus).
+ When you put on a composite clothing item it replaces the clothing items in all of the slots it affects.
+ When you take off a composite clothing item your clothes will revert to what you previously had on in all of those slots.
o We have added a category for Outfits.
+ Outfits are collections of two or more clothing items that are put on and taken off together.
+ There is a new “Outfits” menu in the “Clothing” section of the wardrobe where you can access any outfits you own.
+ Depending on how an outfit is set up you may be able to put on the individual pieces of it or you may need to put the whole outfit on at the same time
+ When changing clothes or customising your character pressing [CROSS] will now confirm a change whereas pressing [CIRCLE] will cancel the change and return you to the previous menu.

* Miscellaneous Improvements
o There is a new background image on the front end.
o We have improved when and how we check for items that you own. As a result the speed with which you log in to Home or move between stores has been improved.
o Relocation between areas is quicker.
o The collision on bowling pins has been improved.
o The menu available in the Menu Pad has been rearranged to make options easier to find. In particular the “Settings” menu has been broken into several categories to accommodate all of the new options.
o There are two new options in the Menu Pad for changing how Home is displayed on your television.
+ Screen size and position can be changed under “Settings > Adjust Screen Position and Size”.
+ The brightness of the screen can be changed under “Settings > Adjust Gamma”.
o The leader of a club may now blacklist people from being able to join their club, via the admin menu. Anyone who is blacklisted and attempts to join the club will see a message explaining that they cannot join and why.

Posted 51 days ago

5 Comments

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By Mexicodude908 on 7 weeks ago:

cool stuff, bout time there is gonna be universal launch!

By MMBtalk on 7 weeks ago:

A lot of interesting stuff, but is it enough to divert the attention of those who have been calling for voice communication? The other interesting feature that is still being awaited is being able to bring your personal photos into your flat. I hope the fact that Home will now be able to export photos out, will also shortly be able to import them into home. I think the technical team should be commended for making home a diverse environment.

By edwardsierra on 7 weeks ago:

I like the way things are looking on home. the marrige between home and the xmb would be complete if they used there newly added 3d wallpaper to Home. imagine starting your ps3 and having it show your avatar at home or whever you last stopped at in the home universe in the backround and when you start home it just fades the xmb away. its more than possible, its practical. If they want as many people as they can checking out home. The easier it gets the more will come.

By PS3 News on 7 weeks ago:

If anyone here is experiencing the 1.3 update freezing issue, here is a possible work-around: http://thegameraccess.com/ps3/solution-to-home-13-freezing

Quote:

Were you one of the many PS3 owners who were anxious to try out the 1.3 update for Home, which just released, to have it freeze on you every time? Locust_Star, one of the Home Managers, has just informed us all how we can get around this.

"If you're having difficulties logging into Home, please delete and reinstall. If, after trying this, you still cannot log in, please post on the Support forum. We'll be watching that forum all day to identify any log-in issues associated with the 1.3 client update.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding."

There you have it folks. If you want to be one of the first to experience Home 1.3, head to the Home icon on the XMB, press triangle and delete. Once that is done, launch Home and follow the instructions.

By PSPSwampy on 7 weeks ago:

Wow yet more crashes - great, thanks for the update sony!

For those interested...
Home 1.3 downloads k and installs ok - following this it loads up to the nice new login screen (WOW! <- sarcasm), Then click to sign in, it gets to the "Initialising..." part and then crashes taking down the entire console at the same time - just locks up completely (needs a power cycle to sort it out).

Oh well, guess i'll try the delete & reinstall solution and see if that works (will post back later with the results!)

Damn, just missed the edit timer...

Oh btw this is most likly something to do with the CACHING update that's included in 1.3 - I was wondering how you'd go about changing to a larger cache if you already had home installed - guess the answer is "You have to uninstall and reinstall anyway so..."

UPDATE:

Just deleted (Triangle on the HOME icon) and reinstalled.
Seems to be ok now (and yes, i did have to select a cache size)

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Video: PlayStation Home v1.3 Coming Thursday to PS3 & More!

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