Buzz! dev: ‘PS3 Home starting to realise potential’

Buzz! dev: ‘PS3 Home starting to realise potential’
Wesley Yin-Poole Updated on by

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Sony’s free virtual world Home is “only now starting to realise its potential”, Buzz! developer Relentless Software reckons.

According to executive director Andrew Eades, Sony’s much-maligned PS3 space “will only get more interesting” as more developers support it.

Last month Sony Computer Entertainment moved to calm concern that the platform holder no longer viewed the service as a priority.

“Home is still a top priority for Sony and will continue to release quality content and provide a positive experience to our users,” explained a PlayStation Home manager.

Speaking during a preview event for Blue Toad Murder Files, Relentless’ upcoming PSN-exclusive murder mystery puzzle game, Eades told VideoGamer.com:

“I don’t have a Second Life account. It’s not for me. But clearly there are a bunch of people who like it. I may well be the wrong kind of person. Home doesn’t appeal to me personally that much. I understand that it appeals to a lot of people. I’ve got no idea why.”

Fellow executive director David Amor said that Home “was announced early… and when it was first launched there wasn’t quite enough to do in it”.

But he added: “If you look at Home now – I think every fortnight now they put something else up – this stuff is starting to come through. I remember we started to do our Buzz! Home space in 2006, 2007. We said here’s what we want to do – it’s quite a simple premise – run around. And they [Sony] said, yeah the tools can’t quite do that yet. All right. We’ll sit tight and wait for that to become available.

“Only now you’re starting to see that it’s realising its potential. Even now probably not quite as much as everyone would like to do. But Sony has to build the tools to allow people to create content for it. The stuff coming through now is more compelling than when it first launched. It felt like a bit of a gap in the beginning when there wasn’t enough cool stuff happening. It always seems to be quite busy.”

Eades said: “It’s got a different set of challenges and it can offer different things. There’s a game we’re considering doing which only could work in Home. We haven’t got the bandwidth to do it right now, but it’s about using the right platform for your product. Even though we’re exclusive to Sony, we’ve got a lot of different platform choices. We’ve got Home, PS3 and PSP.”

Episode one of Blue Toad Murder Files: The Mysteries of Little Riddle will be available exclusively on PSN on December 17 priced £6.49. Episode one and two will be available on the same date as a bundle for £9.99.

What do you think of Home? Let us know in the comments section below.