TGS 2009: Make room for 'PlayStation Room'

by Andrew Yoon on Sep 24th 2009 11:39AM

Sony has announced a new PSP service for designing 3D avatars and "my room" spaces, along with blog, album, and group gathering and chat support. Um ... does this sound familiar to anyone?

Yes, it looks like PlayStation Home is coming to PSP ... sort of. PlayStation Room (officially spelled with an infinity symbol in place of the "oo" in Room) will be added to PSP in an upcoming firmware update this winter and can be launched directly from the PlayStation Network section of the XMB. Just like in Home, PSP owners will be able to invite other PlayStation players into their rooms to "enjoy real time communication." Is that what the kids call it these days?

While anything remotely resembling PlayStation Home has us reeling with trepidation, we do think Room's stylized avatars look significantly less creepy than the Home avatars ripped from the uncanny valley. We're also hopeful that the advent of Room will mean the addition of much-needed features, like a friends list and proper messaging services. And just imagine the connectivity possibilities: PlayStation HomeRoom! ... Anybody?

PlayStation Room

Tags: home, playstation-home, playstation-room, room, tgs-2009

Reader Comments (48)

Anything avatar related I will ignore.

yeah this is just more garbage that no one will get any enjoyment out of

Let me yank that device that lets you talk to the dead, you can catch up with Jacko later, I want to talk to my grandma whom I hardly got to see in her lifetime, catch up with her.

Because Home was a rousing success, right?

You don't like being molested by so many teens?

Sony has made lots of money from microtransactions and ads... so yes, yes it is.

well its not a failure...if it made over $1 million the first 2 weeks then I can only imagine how much it has made now almost a year later

Anyone who has spent more than two minutes in a public Home space and seen all the different costumes and outfits people run around in can clearly see that yes, Home is a success and has been making Sony dolla dolla bills.

looks better than those creepy looking Home avatars

If we're talking creepy... You ever see the Xbox 360 Miis? Er, Avatars. Those things frighten me, and I don't scare easily.

That conference last night was just chock full of horrible news. It was like getting kicked in the balls again every time you started to recover from the last one.

GT5 in march instead of december

RE 5 with extremely awkward waggle

Home for psp

Anything else? I blacked out from the pain after that one

the same could be said for every game coming in march.

gt5 never had a release date of december. accept it

How do you know the RE5 motion controls are awkward? Did you get to try them? If they're anything like RE4 Wii Edition, it'll be great.

It'd be nice if people stop hating on motion controls just because the majority of Wii game developers ruined the entire concept by making terrible games with worse implementations of "waggle-instead-of-button-press" technology.

"How do you know the RE5 motion controls are awkward?"

Because I paid attention to the conference last night, and no it's nothing like RE4 Wii. You hold the dualshock in 1 hand, likely for shooting with the triggers, and the waggle wand in your other hand for pointing + moving.

Picture yourself doing it like that. I used my controller and rock band mic last night to emulate it....it's awful.

Why would you shoot with the DualShock's L1 or L2 when there's a trigger on the Motion Controller?

The Sony motion controller doesn't have any kind of directional pad or analog sticks. Using the controller in tandem is probably for movement, which is stupid and awkward; unless Sony is planning a Nunchuck-like attachment.

Can we just get a PSP friend list?
wait.. anyone wanna bet the PSP friend list comes with this update?

REALLY Sony?? lol

Aside from the home similarity, it also sounds similar to the "Wii no Ma" channel Nintendo has in Japan, in the sense of Miis being together in a room, and then watching TV, though its not online connectivity for the Miis

are those bratz? I couldn't be bothered with actually clicking on the images.

Wait, so you're saying I'll be able to Quincy on the go?

Well, count me it!

Gees people are so negative. I for one think it looks cool and if this will get more people to play PSP (which would equal more support and more games) then I'm all for it.

Ugly or not, i would already be happy to finally have something new added to the firmware of my PSP-1000. Seems like whenever they include something 'new' in the firmware it's never for the older PSPs. For instance the increased number of colors to use as a background in the latest update, which seems like something that should also work on an older PSP, didn't work on the 1000. Still the same crappy 12 colors to pick from. So i highly doubt i'll see anything like this ever show up on a PSP-1000.

Is this maybe another pathetic attempt to sell the PSP-go?
PSP-doa is more appropriate if you ask me.

Thank you sony! I love free things.

replace home with this, at least this is somewhat stylized

I think with a little hard work you can become the worst troll in the history of Joystiq.

Don't care about you guys, but I like the idea, its about time I got some form of messaging and communications service on my PSP, while not exactly what I had in mind, its free and it can be used as a time waster, count me in :P

PSP has Skype... can't get better than that. These new things are pretty useless, they will just take up space on the PSPs NAND flash and sooner or later they will stop support for the later versions of PSP because they crammed too much crap into the memory.

I know that the Original PSP doesn't support Skype but if I was to ever want it, I would upgrade from my 1000 just for it and the tv out support (not to mention the smaller size). PSP GO! doesn't offer anything revolutionary, maybe if it had a built in camera and GPS I would bite but to me PSP GO! is just a butchered PSP stuck inside a slider phone case :P

I'd prefer something more simplistic then Skype, that I know everyone has, and at the same time I could look for gamers rather then occasionally bumping into them on the street, I'm more likely to meet gamers through this method then whipping out my PSP amongst my friends and asking for thier Skype account details to contact them, not that I have anything against Skype, its a success all round, and really makes messaging easier, but considering 1000 models don't have it, and theres limited amounts of things you can do with it, I sort of see this as the facebook of PSP, except with avatars......and a virtual world......and rooms, but the fact still remains, I can meet people while just being at home chilling out, somewhat like how the PS3 is when in-game, not all PSP games have online modes to meet people though.

I think it's a pretty cool concept.I also notice there's a lot of Home bashing here, maybe you should research how many millions log into Home every day.Most of them don't even go to gaming sites.

I hope if they decide to integrate Friends list onto the PSP it will just be the same PSN realm as on the PS3. This way if you are an owner of a PS3 and a PSP you can stay connected with the same PSN ID/friends.

This would also be an incentive for PSP only owners to get a PS3, seeing as how they can communicate to PSP Friends via the PS3 XMB.

So..yeah..I'd never open this anywhere there's any chance, no matter how small, of another human being able to see this on my PSP.

I'd have to block myself from seeing myself using this, now that I think about it.

But you just told the world that you would use it... So, we know. You can hide it from people in person, but you know deep inside that you like it. :)

Being honest...I haven't played my PSP in 3 years.

Games are too pricey, didn't feel like hacking it (even too lazy to throw it up on craigslist)

Am I the only one that likes PS Home? I'm in a SF4 Club that holds tournaments every week, and sometimes I do some other game launching meet-ups, poker tournaments, trolling the buzz quiz, etc.. I'm looking forward to this in the hopes that it even has half of the things that you can do in home.

Solace I agree with you on that. I never liked the look of PlayStation Home. However the stylized new look of PlayStation Room has me very excited. I only hope that PS Room will get a U.S. Release date of this Winter and not next Summer for us North Americans. Japan almost get's everything before we in the West do. Simply look at Club Nintendo and Dragon Quest IX Defenders of the Starry Sky, Final Fantasy XIII or Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep to get my meaning.

This upcoming PlayStation Room looks impressive and I will no doubt head over to Game Stop to trade my PSP 3000 for the PSP GO. On second thought I hope that PlayStation Room will be available on the PSP GO, however I'm quite sure it will.

Wow, is that the new smaller, non-circular PSP, oh no wait..

interesting idea for sure.

I hope those avatars have dreads.. My Mii and my 360 avatar look like a cartoony version of me. My Home character? Not at all in the least bit.

So...Home's considered a bad thing now? You guys were all stoked for it before it landed.

Eww....that is all

Too late Sony, MS and Nintendo have the stylized avatars for console. PSP Room should have been what PS Home is

um...well lets hope it does better then PSP messenger. I dont think im going to use this feature that much. I will try it but eventually ill just not care about. Because the avatars....look...i mean come on if we can do god of war on psp. And if multiplayer only uses 1/3 of the system. Them im sure we can get something better then that scrap up there...

Come on sony...just give us Friends section on the psp. first go messenger and now this? Wow just add friends for psp xmb for christ sake.

Love the concept, love the avatars, but I think it needs a bit more.. stuff.

Like a mini-Home for the PSP. Just sitting in a room doesn't sound like as much fun.

So, PlayStation R∞m…,

As far as Avatars on Sony platforms are concerned...

Sackboys or GTFO.

PlayStation experience is excellent. There fulfill true enjoy of gaming with PlayStation. I always like to play games with PlayStation then other.

It would do better if it was called "Home" and was directly linked to the PS3 alternative. I mean, This won't be popular. Home was different, but this just looks very... Nintendo-ish.

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TGS 2009: Make room for 'PlayStation Room'

PlayStation Room

Reader Comments (48)

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