Hello All, I am happy to announce that on Wednesday 30th January, the PlayStation Home client will be upgraded to v1.75. Listed below are the patch notes: Application of the patch If you are upgrading from an old version of Home (1.40 or earlier), please wait for the orange “hard drive activity” light to stop flashing on your PS3 before commencing the patching process. New Features and Improvements Save Data Transfer With Patch 1.75 your save data will be transferred from your PS3 hard drive onto the Home Servers.This will improve performance and means that your save data will remain available should you ever need to reinstall home or login from a different PS3.The transfer process will take place when you first install the patch. This process will only occur once per account.Once the transfer is complete Home will only read save data from the Home Servers. As such any backup data or saved data you may have on another PS3 will no longer be accessible.The save data being transferred includes your Preferences, Character Saves and Apartment Furniture Layouts.The transfer process will not affect your Purchases and Rewards which are already stored on the Home Servers.You will now be able to access your wardrobe while in another person’s apartment.If the apartment owner leaves their apartment while you are in the wardrobe you will automatically leave the wardrobe and relocate to your Harbour Studio.You will see a message informing you that the host left to indicate why you have been relocated.Wardrobe Improvements You will now be able to access your wardrobe while in another person's apartment.If the apartment owner leaves their apartment while you are in the wardrobe you will automatically leave the wardrobe and relocate to your Harbour Studio.You will see a message informing you that the host left to indicate why youy have been relocated.PlayStation Plus Improvements Extra functionality has been added for PlayStation Plus members.PlayStation Plus members will now be able to select custom colours for their hair and make-up.The colour menu now has an additional customise option containing a colour picker.The last 8 custom colours that you have used are also kept in a palette so that you can select the exact same colours again if you need to.7The D-Pad can be used to switch between the colour picker and the palette.The number of character save slots for PlayStation Plus members has been doubled from 24 to 48.An additional 8 pop up colours will also be available for PlayStation Plus members.PlayStation Plus members can choose to display a PlayStation Plus icon on their character label.Your PlayStation Plus subscription must be active to access these features.The WWW and Save Indicator icons have been updated to better reflect the new save data functionality.Club ImprovementsClub Members can now choose to display the Club Name or Club Tag of their preferred club on their character label.Each Club Menu has a Customise Player Label option where the display of the Club Name or Club Tag can be switched on or off.UI Improvements The WWW and Save Indicator icons have been updated to better reflect the new save data functionality. General Improvements A number of general stability and performance improvements have been made.Implemented an enhanced reconnection process.The Camera Portable Item has been removed. The Camera is now only accessible from the emote menu by pressing [R1]
So if you're not a plus member you don't count anymore. Really it's all about money now isn't it. Doesn't matter how much money you spend in the Mall. It only matters if you spend money on Plus. Wonderful. I'm not sure I understand the camera portable. It's now in the emote menu?
I had a feeling this update was nothing but another shameless money grab by Sony. This just goes to prove it.
As a plus member I'm glad to see more bang for my buck in Home, sadly it's mostly for basic features that really every user should have access to.
Yeah and those who spend 1000's get what? Seriously enough with the special I'm a plus member baloney. Core features should be for everyone.
Well it's become obvious to me lately that what the community as a whole thinks doesn't really matter anymore. It's all about the money now and that is what we are seeing from the selling of emotes and loco items to this push for core features that the community has been asking for forever by trying to force Plus Membership. This is only the beginning I'm afraid. I suspect if you want multiple apartment saves and more you'll have to be a Plus Member to get them in the future.
While I agree core features like these should be for everyone, the argument of "what do people get who spent thousands" is invalid, when you buy items in Home you're buying those items, nothing else, when you buy a plus sub you're paying for the privilege of getting discounts, early access and exclusive content.The keyword here being "content" I totally agree that some of the most basic features shouldn't be hidden under a subscription service. The main problem I see here is they're clearly testing the waters to see how many new plus members this brings in, Seems to me it's only a matter of time before PSN and therefore Home access itself requires a subscription.
When Plus was first introduced I asked for more Plus benefits within Home, but I never expected them to go in this direction. The new features they're introducing seem to be basic updates that should be available to everyone.
I was only convinced to get PSPlus when they offered the home spaces for free with it. I don't have very much interest in the blahblah (Bordercraplands etc, fps, fps blah blah blah, same old crap they've been selling since Doom, get over it yawn), So for me it's good if they give more Playstation Home content. You'll still have the same content you had in Home, they're not taking it away from you & I'd speak up & say you should still get free basic access to home, free access to Home is something that is a real plus point for the PS3. Companies want to make money, if you think that companies can run without making profit, then I'd love to see your business model. Sony & others clearly want to make "more" money from Home. I really don't see the problem, so long as they keep the basic features & keep them free. Then if you've paid for PSPlus, or if you want to pay more then you get more content. Even already we see the locomotion items, which didn't interest me at all, they're all just sitting in my inventory, I have little or no interest... I used the free LBP cupcake cart a little. But just now I paid for a pink horse. I wanted a pink horse. that Prairie "Trail" was a huge dissapointment... there's nice artwork, nice trees, the grass sways, but little interaction & there's a house but we can't go in it, there's a train but we can't ride it!!! lol, sorry side tracked. Point is I wanted the horse, I paid for the horse, I've been happily riding around almost every free space & through all my apartments with my horse... I really like the horse, but I had no real interest in the other locomotion items & I havn't paid for them, so that's fine by me.
The extra "features" will NOT make me go buy a Plus membership. However, I am sure plenty will happily part with their money to get them. I agree with most..... these basic features should NOT be part of a money grab, which is what this is all about. Home has been heading in this direction for sometime now. In my opinion, to not include the ability to have multiple space saves in this new update and then to do this on top of that, is just shameful. It's now clear as to why they didn't want us to know the details until it was too late. The real question is, just how much money DOES Sony make from the thousands of mico-transactions it does each day in Home? Is it enough to pay for the service? If it isn't, then go the Xbox route. Charge me a fee to use Home. But then give me all the basics as part of that fee and give me better, reliable connections. Sadly, we won't ever know the answer to that question because everything with Sony is a secret. I fear this isn't the end for these kind of "surprises". Only the beginning.
I bought one of those 17.99 plus memberships for the first time about three months ago.So far I guess it's all right ,I got 2 games ,Rochard and Darksiders and some X7 discounts,which i was happy about.I want to keep playing the games so i plan on re-newing my plus membership and now this update.I have an added incentive it seems,to renew.I'll try it for another three months,see how it goes.As far as the rest goes,I agree that it's just the beginning.These changes are probably leading to what Home will be on the PS4.
As much as it pains me to side with Sony on this... These aren't core features that are being restricted to Plus. Let's go down the list from the OP: The core function is modifiable hair and makeup colors. The limitation for non-plus is that the palette of colors is quite limited. The core function is nevertheless available to all and provides choices covering most of the natural hair colors, not to mention a few unnatural ones. Again, the core functionalities remain: multiple save slots, multiple popup colors. You just get twice as much of each if you have Plus. Whatever this is, it's not something anyone would call a core feature. I think Plus users can already stick a golden plus sign over their heads, anyway. Both are perfectly useless, in my opinion. Sorry. Whatever other arguments against these practices may exist, I don't think it's true that Sony's preventing non-Plus users from using the associated core features.
I was considering plus again because they are finally giving good discounts (LBP Karting for $10), if you only use home, it's not worth it. I use max of 6 save slots. It would be nice to have my real shade of hair, but its not worth paying extra.
This update is really a let down. Not much requested features had been addressed and they go the route that restricts what we can do. I was expecting at least some better wardrobe management, and personal space furniture save slots with the update The only thing I see good about is that we can change in others personal spaces. The other features are blah, or something I can't really trust.