Ways To Improve The Playstation Network

When Sony first launched the PS3 in 2006, the PlayStation Network was pretty dismal, with many features which were standard on Microsoft's Xbox 360, launched a year earlier, missing on the PS3. Over three years later now and the PSN has become a feature-heavy online service with one main advantage over Xbox Live - free online play. However, with the constant firmware updates and introduction of new features, the PSN is still criticized for missing some very important features which gamers are screaming for on blogs and forums, and instead adding features which aren't requested or wanted by the consumers. This article is a basic rundown of how I would improve the PlayStation Network, and perhaps a bit of an early guess at a few of the features of the future premium PlayStation Network.

Listen To Your Consumers

Over the years Sony has promised and delivered PSN features, albeit later than sooner, such as in-game XMB and achievements, in the form of the trophies we now all know and love. Now I can't imagine playing a game without in-game XMB, having to close a game you're playing to accept a multiplayer invite, or to read a simple message is a massive inconvenience. Luckily a firmware update fixed this and we all now enjoy the elegant XMB interface in game at almost any time.

For well over a year, the PSN public and in particular the 'hardcore' multiplayer fanatics have been virtually jumping up and down for a decent party system and cross game chat. These two features have been rumoured on numerous websites to be coming 'in the next few months' as far back as E3 2009, perhaps earlier. The fact is we don't know when these features are coming, even though they have been a standard feature for the subscribers of Microsoft's Xbox Live. Party systems make jumping from game to game tenfold easier, not to mention the ability to stay in communication with the members of your party in between games, when you're swapping discs or just having a smoke waiting for the next game. A party feature would not only make the community a tighter place, but also make the thousands of people who are impatiently waiting for it much, much happier as   consumers.

Another common complaint, seen commonly on the official PlayStation blog is that the SCEE PlayStation Stores needs to be up to date to the US and JAP PlayStation Stores, which in comparison have hundreds more PSOne classics and quite often get earlier and cheaper products compared to SCEE regions. While I'm sure it is hard to work with so many different languages and currencies compared to the SCEA / SCEJ regions, some content doesn't reach the shore of some countries until months after. Speaking from experience living in Australia, we still do not have Zombie Apocalypse in our store, and the entire SCEE region received FF VII months after the US.

If you search forums and blogs you'll find many requests which commonly pop up over and over, such as the ability to have two PSN accounts signed in to the one PS3 to allow trophies to be unlocked on both accounts when playing split screen co-op. Many users also want a demo for every PSN game which is released; this is becoming more and more common lately with the latest PSN update having 4 new PSN games, 3 of which had demos. Regardless, every point mentioned thus far is already implemented on Xbox Live, and has been for some time. Unfortunately Sony takes a while to actually recognize that their consumers are requesting these features and until they're finally implemented, the PSN will always be a step below Xbox Live.

PlayStation Home - Scrap It, or Fix It

PlayStation Home was announced early 2007, and after many delays it was finally released as an open beta product in December 2008. This naturally caused a flood of users to jump in and experience the so called social community hub for the PS3 for the first time. Over a year later now, and while Home does have a dedicated community, it isn't exactly what Sony was aiming for.

As Home was shown through 2008, it sounded like a great idea; a space where you and your online friends and/or clan mates can hang out, discuss gaming, stream video to your apartment's virtual TV and play music through your virtual stereo - it was a Second Life for the 'hardcore' gamers. Unfortunately, in your apartment itself, there's very little to do, and Sony hasn't fulfilled many of its promises. You still can't stream video/music from your XMB to your apartment, which I believe to be a huge draw to Home. There's just no justification to sitting in your apartment with friends. Sure you can chat, but you can do that through the text chat room in the XMB, while you play some Killzone 2 or Assassin's Creed.

Since release, Sony have completely changed their focus on Home. Originally it was to be a central hub for friends to hang out and socialise, now it has developed into a "game platform, first and foremost." Many mini games have been released since the original open beta's launch for numerous games such as inFamous and Gravity Crash, and even non-gaming products such as Red Bull. In December 2008, Sodium One was released for Home, the first MMOG to be released specifically for Home. This only reiterates the shift that Home has taken from a social network for PS3 gamers to the game platform it has become.

There's one question you have to raise when playing these games in Home: Why would I play a 5 minute game which isn't all that fun, when I could be playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, or Modern Warfare 2? There isn't really any justification behind it, especially if a particular gamer has limited time to choose between games, are they going to choose the inFamous mini game in Home, or are they going to choose to actually play inFamous?

Regardless, Sony have reported that they're very happy with the results of Home and this is due to a core fanbase of Home who are on there every day; these commonly aren't the 'hardcore' gamers, but more casual players. They spend money weekly buying updated furniture and clothing and buying access to Sodium One. This fanbase is also what has caused the shift in focus on Home.  Sony have created these games to cater for these players to keep them interested in Home, all the while ignoring their original goals to create a social platform for gamers.

People don't want to hang out with random people they don't know, nor do they want to play bowling or pool with them. The games room for Home was a good idea but the fact that you have to wait in a virtual queue to play is a terrible decision. As such, there should be a place where you can buy pool tables, dart boards, maybe even paintball guns and other games to put in your apartment. That way, you can play games with your friends in your apartment, with none of the rudeness or waiting that comes with playing in the games room. Add video and audio streaming to your room and straight away you have a much improved apartment with lots of stuff to keep you and your friends entertained.

There are hundreds of ideas people can come up with for Home; it's really a place of endless opportunity to try something different. But this won't happen if they don't improve the core aspects such as improved loading time, the ability to load up your PS3 straight into Home, and in game launching for you and your party. However, with the focus on gaming instead of the social aspects that was promised, it's no wonder that nearly every person I've asked regarding Home have said to scrap it.

Wildcard - Something New & Innovative

Microsoft brought us many things with Xbox Live, including the industry changing achievements. Sony followed in 2008 with the trophy system, and now almost every major gaming platform has one form of achievement or another - Steam has an in-built achievement function and World of Warcraft now has a massive list of achievements. However, this generation Sony hasn't brought anything innovative to the console in term of functionality. With the recent announcement of a premium PSN service and a leaked survey which discussed possible upcoming features, Sony may just look at doing this with some of the named features.

One such feature is the ability to play the first hour of full games as a trial period. This may not sound exactly innovative, but it will certainly help people who are on the fence about a game, and will drive sales of software for Sony.

One very interesting named feature is token wagering. We know nothing about the feature other than the name, so anything beyond this point is pure speculation. Some say that you will get a fixed number of tokens every month which you can then wager with other players online in selected competitive online games. Whether these tokens are just for show, or can be used to purchase content from the PlayStation Store is still up in the air.

Another feature which once again is pure speculation is user to user challenges. These could be challenges within the game created by the developer, which you then select and challenge your friends to beat your time or score. A leaderboard would be necessary to post all the results, to see who the king of user to user challenges is in a particular game or overall.

There are many different features listed in the survey such as member only in-game content, Cloud Storage space for game saves and data, a loyalty program rewards system, exclusive experiences with Sony brands, and even cross game chat is mentioned. With so many options to create a better PSN, Sony has the opportunity to make a much needed innovative feature.

It's the Little Things That Count

How many times have you unlocked a trophy, only to not know what it was so you press the PlayStation button only to find yourself in your friends list? Having to then scroll over to the Game section of the XMB, select Trophies, select the current game and then scroll through the list to find the trophy you just unlocked is a huge pain. It may not sound like much, but think about if you pressed the PlayStation button while the trophy notification it instantly took you to the trophy you just unlocked, and in a similar fashion when receiving a message from a friend. This is one of many little features which Sony is missing with the PS3, and that Xbox 360 users have been enjoying for years. It may not be a blockbuster feature, but it makes the console more simplified and streamlined to use.

With the release of firmware 3.00, the friends list got a minor overhaul adding big grey blocks over each profile card, and since 3.10, they have been fixed to look cleaner and we've been given the ability to change the colour of our card; this may be a hint that a much needed overhaul of the friends list may be coming. Some information on the last few played games, or the details of the multiplayer game (map, size, who else is playing with them) for each friend would look very nice as long as it stays clean. The larger profile card (after clicking X on a friend) could also be improved to include many more details, which Xbox Live has. Add in faster loading trophies and profiles and you'd have a much cleaner and neater interface to work with when playing online.

There's many features which could be added to improve the PSN overall, such as easier networking when a house has more than one PS3, universal in-game custom music and playlists, constant improvements to the web browser (including updates to Flash), an RSS reader and a universal filter to allow filtering out all servers not in your country. Improved sorting options for each category on the XMB (Music, Video, Images, Friends) and better organization in the PlayStation Store are other commonly requested features, all which will once again streamline the experience for all PS3 users.

There's no denying that the PSN is a great online system, I've been happy with it since I bought my PS3 in April 2008 and since then we've seen huge updates including the in-game XMB, trophies, VidZone and the photo viewer, and soon full HD streaming will be available all around the world instead of only in selected countries. The premium service will be coming hopefully within the next 12 months, and maybe at E3 2010 we will hear about the incoming features that will be included in the update - let's just hope that online play, and some of the more minor updates remain free.

2010 is going to be a great year for gamers, whether they own a PS3, Xbox 360, Wii or all three.