Sony Reveals Vision for the Metaverse

I can’t believe companies are basically remaking Second Life and acting like it’s some cutting edge thing.

I’d take a PS Home in PSVR.

Eh, a PS Home revival would be better than this.

Sounds horrible. A social space is the last thing I want from games.

Doesn't sound interesting or promising. If the best example they can think of is a virtual concert — well, that's just Fortnite. Maybe Epic Games will make something out of the Metaverse; they're certainly in a good position for it. Sony should probably stick to AAA gaming. They're good at that.

I like how Nintendo didn't succumb to any Metaverse BS. They were just like, "It's interesting. Hell if we know what to do with it. Maybe one day we'll think of something." Kinda refreshing comparatively.

This is a ridiculously bad idea.

Why would i need to go to a virtual concert online when i can watch full screen a stream with comment section? It literally makes no sense. You are adding something extra that is not convenience.

This idea is about as bad as PS home.
It's greed taking hold of executives heads thinking that anything they can monetize will be something people want.

Although I dislike social spaces, a VR environment where I could play minigames, watch films, go to concerts etc, well…that sounds better than actual socialising as I can mute and block people far more easily!

Forget all this - what happened to that Discord partnership? Shouldn’t that be the connection between communities they should be focusing on?

@nessisonett We've had this for years with PS Home and VR Chat too. I think Metaverse is just Facebook wanting to trademark everything VR/Social related

Me: wonder what's the next round of exclusives after cross gen Ragnarok
Sony: can we interest you in metaverse

@lolwhatno
Lol. Got a new phone and forgot my email and password 🙄 how lucky my username isn’t so common!

Polite pass if it's connected to Facebook.

@thefourfoldroot1 Muting/blocking people with social presence? Sounds like that episode of Black Mirror.

While it doesn't appeal to me, whatsoever, I do believe there's a big market for virtual social spaces. One might even assume half of online gaming revolves around just hanging out with friends; removing the imposed "gaminess" from this could make for something quite popular. I'd be more interested to hear why exactly this is appealing to you, to be quite honest. It's just fascinating to me, as I've no issue interacting with people/strangers in real life, but absolutely detest doing so virtually.

Video game companies being the ones leading the charge is a bit disingenuous, though. The Metaverse is something entirely different from games. Like how a video call isn't cinema, virtual socializing isn't gaming. I think companies right now haven't quite grasped that these are different markets and their gaming loyalists are likely indifferent or outright against the notion of a Metaverse.

Just as .hack, SAO and Bofuri showed us what the real VR is supposed to be like, Belle recently demonstrated what a real and proper metaverse can be like - boasting tech aeons beyond the level of even SAO's NerveGears (for one, the user doesn't have to lie like a log all session long) and once again establishing that our own world appears at least another decade away from all that. Yaying or naying it until then is not unlike debating the purchase of a land plot on the moon.

Revive PS Home you cowards!

@RoomWithaMoose
Well, I just like the idea of being at a VR concert without having to queue and travel and deal with rowdy people (sure you have to listen through a speaker, but for most of us at concerts that’s the case anyway); same with the cinema. Being able to stroll around fully realised virtual environments/art installations etc, appeals. Especially as a lot of the hassle of moving a load of flesh through physical space is removed and so much time saved.
Interacting with other people in virtual space is another matter though. Unfortunately, when people aren’t at risk of being punched in the face, they are much more likely to be themselves I find, lol.

Everyone comes up with cool stuff that they imagine will exist in the future, and then companies try to capitalize on that too early and before the technology actually exists, and it just feels so laaaaaaame. Like hoverboards just being segues, holograms just being lights on fan blades, and now this “metaverse” which just sounds like club penguin or sims. Bleeeeeh. The future isn’t now, stop pretending it is!

Read the title and thought they are bringing back playstation home. Feeling nostalgic now

Would rather do stuff in real life than deal with the metaverse. If anything, I play video games to get away from people, as I work with them all day. To be honest though, I worked from home for 2 years due to covid. I fully believe that experience gave me social anxiety that I didn't have before. People need interaction in real life, not just online.

I like how "the metaverse" is a completely different thing for every company that talks about it, and it's basically just "a future where people use all our products all at once, virtually" (And we retain the marketing rights from tracking their data.)

We've heard all the feedback from our younger customers, and so, today, we're pleased to introduce you to the future!

Whilst it might not be popular with kind of jaded gamers that hang out on sites such as this, social spaces and events held in games like fortnite is big news with huge audiences who are very happy to consume their media this way.
Sonys investments into epic, along with the lego group (who rarely put a foot wrong) is shrewd investment into a company with a proven track record of delivering this succesfuly.
The fact few on a site like this can say a good word about it convinces me they are definately right to pursue it. Most people on this site have questionable vision, normally related purely to their own needs and tastes with little understanding of the broader market.

I liked PS Home it was a fun social place. This whole ‘metaverse’ thing is garbage, I couldn’t be any less interested.

Seems like a gimmick to sell more software to the casual person.

@Titntin I think it's the wider market that has questionable tastes...

Mostly they'll consume anything they're told everyone else consumes, though. "Fitting in" is the thrill, not the activity itself. Which is....counter-evolutionary....

@Fenbops This "whole 'metavserse' garbage" basically IS PS Home, or at least something similar. Perhaps when VR is better and cheaper it will really take off.

The thing is, Ready Player One imagines this virtual universe that encompasses everything - it's the sole platform for games, education, virtual travel, social events, and so on. Ultimately that's the goal of everyone shouting "meta" right now - including the goal that THEY will be the ones owning and controlling that universe that everyone is inside, not someone else.

And that's just not practical in today's world, with trademark and copyright licensing and monetization of content. It works in the story (book or movie) because it's a monopoly that is the framework for everything - but, for example, no matter how awesome something like Unreal 5 may be, not EVERY game developer is going to use that platform for their games so it could be the framework for everything - and major studios that DO leverage it will still want to customize and extend and make it their own. If the idea of the common framework is so awesome and so inevitable, why are we having this conversation on an independent site instead of something built inside Facebook?

The idea that everything will live in a single platform is becoming more possible, but it will probably never come to fruition - not because of the technical hurdles, but because of the social and political hurdles. Monopolies don't innovate the same way that competitors do. We may have virtual worlds, but they'll be multiple platforms you hop between, not one virtual universe to rule them all (and in the darkness bind them).

@nessisonett Still microtransactions, seasonpasses, battlepass, unfinished games its all normal now while we were laughing at it first.

If they can monetize it they will find a way to feed it to the people and in the end we all get used to it.

Yoshida lost me at the word 'social' 😁

Watching the Metaverse crash and burn is going to be so fun. There is literally nothing about it that is the least bit interestng.

I love the whole idea of the metaverse concept, not that Facebook trash, but I have no interest in a Sony, Microsoft... etc ran 'metaverse'. I've spent thousands of hours play stuff like Second Life and VRChat.

These companies are ran by public opinion, shareholders, and restrictive ToS agreements. They'll end up limiting the massive possibilities. It needs to be an extremely open platform with tons of user created content and game modes. Avatars shouldn't be limited to these companies terrible character creator. If I wanna walk around as a furry in Mjolnir armour so be it.

So frustrating, spending years trying to convince people that vr isn't just a gimmick. Vr finally shows some genuine signs of progress, and a big gimmick comes along and sits in the room to spoil the fun.
Well two big gimmicks, metaverse and nfts.

The fact that Dreams is now to the closest thing Sony/Playstation have for a metaverse product shows how far it is from having a viable product based on that concept.
It will have to take many steps before we can see something like that running on a PlayStation. And I think a lot of those steps they will not be willing to take. Like: allowing external creators to monetize their creations inside the metaverse product and having a account where they can receive money, implementing a easy way for they to transfer their creations created on PC (in Unreal Engine for example) to the metaverse product and making it available there. It would be something not that different from the Google Play Store - but existing inside a virtual world.

Companies keep pushing this metaverse idea but it just seems to be doing stuff I do in life but worse.

metaverse Facebook wants to give ready player one universe 😂😂😂 sorry to break it to meta but our technology isnt the level of that book yes the book os way better than the movie i rekon 50 odd years before that technology is here lol

Hoping this would be a PS Home 2 on the PS5. I loved PS Home I was in the beta it was such a good idea.

As an antisocial introvert that would rather be on my own i can safely say it isn't for me 🤣🤣 and before anyone says it, no, im not fun at parties 🤣🤣🎉

The dotcom bubble was full of companies who imagined people would like to go to a 3D virtual shop to buy something. They all went bust, because that's so much less convenient than a list of items on a website.

We don't need a 3D world for virtual conferencing. That's more awkward than teams. Online concerts potentially have some appeal (I've heard Fortnites are fun) but you don't need to go to a virtual space before the concert starts, and it's will never be similar to the experience of an actual concert.

The 'metaverse' is better done by a bunch of separate things which already exist.

@NEStalgia I cant say we disagree on that, Ive lived long enough to see that de evolution is a real thing! 😁
Regardless of naysayers, a media company seeking to stay at the top of the game needs to cater for the masses and not be pegged back by those of standing on the side lines snipping.

@Milktastrophe i kinda agree, one of the best things i enjoy about gaming is the fact that i can be by myself while doing it, and just escape "society" for a brief moment.

All the companies talk up this Metaverse like its the new coming of the internet, but they all are seemingly making their own version of it separate from other companies Metaverses.

If it was to be adapted by everyone then it probably would have to be one unified space, right?

Like NFT's it appears to be a buzzwords CEOs get caught up in, and now they're desperately trying to get in on the scheme before its too late.

I was doing all this stuff years ago on my PS3 God knows why SONY got rid of HOME to :-/ Ok it wasn't perfect but they could of made it better and better over time. Oh well.

I think Fortnite is the ultimate 'metaverse' because it has already proved how much content and evolution it is capable of. Its very nature is one of evolution, starting as a vs zombies game then evolving to battle royale.

I can host pvp, battle royale, co-op, vs zombies, concerts, music videos, each season it evolves and adds mechanics/graphics styles, whats next?

I can't play it because the building is so annoying but everyday I marvel at the concept and technology behind it.

@Carl-G too one dimensional of a 'game'. Its sole purpose was boring I think it didn't capture enough people's attention.

@johncalmc. You summed that up perfectly. I have absolutely zero interest in anything metaverse

@Rural-Bandit well said0

Not interested for metaverse at all. Companies will realise eventually this is a huge misstep when they lose billions.

@Titntin I'm probably not the only one in gaming with this opinion, which is probably why there's so many sniping, but I don't "get" media anymore. I disengaged with film, many years ago. Last time I was in a theater was probably, IDK, 2005? Other than live events or sports I don't think I've watched television in 20 years. On the accidental occasions I do see it by accident I think I lose a few brain cells and want to kill something.

Which is why I play games instead. But if games are now "catching up" to the rest of media, I think I'll take up knitting.

Edit: The real problem in gaming, and somebody, I don't remember who, said it somewhere on Push in the past few weeks in another thread, but it used to be a niche, and it was a great niche that was a "clean" alternative space for people that weren't interested in the mainstream spaces (which are ever more shallow and trite, and uniform in a creepy Soviet sort of way) vs, say the 1970's alternative space that mostly involved dripping acid at Megadeath concerts. Now it's been coopted and is being dragged into the mainstream and that alternate niche is just vanishing as it's replaced with more of that mainstream uniform space. We've entered a time where niches aren't valid markets, everything must be for everyone, and, like television, the old "boob tube" before it, that means dumbing it down to the most meaningless and public-opinion-driven drivel. And the mainstream media has never been more dumbed down than I see it now. Archie Bunker was Hemmingway compared to what they've got now.

We just need PS Home-in-steroids tbh.

Have any game you buy act like an amiibo that unlocks different things in PS Home-verse whatever for a player's avatar to use.

I see it kinda like a Virtual Dinseyland with a an evolving map.

@Grimwood In terms of the purpose of the format, there's a world of difference. Namely forums like these are more or less community run, and don't exist for the sole purpose of extracting all your information for profit. Ant sells ads, but he's not harvesting every tenuous social connection you've ever had and building psych profiles on you to sell to the highest bidder. Facebook does.

But in terms of the format itself, a forum like this has a highly different nature than "social" it exists as a discussion space for hobbyists in a particular hobby (or industry, or whatever depending on the forum.) In a nutshell the quality of the community and the level of communication tend to be higher. I may complain about the toxic PS community (it is), and the fanboy console wars (they're obnoxious) but at the end of the day, even when it comes to that stuff, the conversation on this type of forum is leagues more intelligent, polite, and functional than similar conversation on "the socials" where, especially coupled with real names in stead of avatars, something that was supposed to make things more civil by tying real identities to it, instead did the opposite. It made people create entire fake personas to keep up appearances, and in time supplanted their real personas and they carry it over in the real world, rearranging their actual life to benefit their appearance on socials. Real life has morphed to mirror the fiction created for socials as that then becomes the reality. There's an oppressive uniformity to the socials. Even where there's endless conflict, there's conflict in uniform formats along predefined lines of division, while everything is fake, and the fake then becomes real.

Push has it's ups and downs, but nobody here is a work of fiction they then carry into their real world, posting just to sate their chain of social connections, and realigning their personality to constantly match the winds of expectation.

Socials basically took everything that was negative about social behavior in the real world, and concentrated it into a distilled, crystalized morass of pure peer pressure, then spits the results back into the real world, morphing it into a mirror of the social itself.

@johncalmc Couldn't agree more

@NEStalgia I actually agree with you completely.
I engage with a lot of modern music, but I find it hard to digest the other forms of media. I can count the number of films I've enjoyed in the last two decades on one hand for instance.

But Sony, and indeed any other company that wishes to make a profit for the future and capture the hearts of the new consumers coming through, do not need to cater to some old guys who cant handle the modern world! They need to stay current and spot trends in consumer consumption so they can meet that demand. If that leaves people like me and you behind, then so be it, their 'reason to be' is not to exclusively service the needs of those who are trapped in nostalgia.

I completely disagree that modern releases only service these modern trends. From my perspective game devs have never been more free to choose how to finance and bring their game to market and what market to serve, and the game industry has never been more diverse as a result. 15 to 20 years ago you either had a big publisher and could convince them to market it or you had nothing, so interesting and different projects were over looked and seldom brought to market. I worked through those years and it was stifling as a creative dev to be tied to the limited imagination of a sales man in the marketing department of some big publisher.

Whilst we may not want or need many experiences that will be laid in front of us, as gamers, we have never had it so good imo.

Let's be honest, this whole metaverse thing is BS, for gaming, social and enterprise. But at least Sony is more clear about, it's PS Home in VR with more of their products inside.
Anybody going to use it tho? Probably not that many people.

@Titntin I think it's overestimated between "kids and old folks" and their media consumption varying so differently. I think media companies tend to fall into a chicken and egg trap. There's this focus on "what are the kids into these days?" But "the kids" generally don't actually have their own tastes, they follow the tastes their told they're supposed to have, which is generally an expectation created by the media companies themselves, and is usually a disjointed taste they don't retain for long in life. It's a cringey pop culture moment in time, manufactured by media companies, leading to always chasing a "trend". There's nothing really organic about it.

Thus it's never really a "future", the future is chasing trends themselves, not really dialing in on an actual enduring model. It's a trap all media has fallen into and now games are falling into it to.

The "second life, IMVU, meta, whatever" thing is less about "a gaming trend" and more about a trendy new social media format for non-gamers that happen to spend money on things, but don't really play videogames. The media companies however will read the financial reports and come to the conclusion this is what young gamers must want, and try to wrap everything into it. Like the bizarre "watch other people play video games" phenomenon being integrated ever more into the console's UIs, while gamers, of any age, would rather just.....play video games?

@NEStalgia lol, I Just replied on the other site too!;0

We really don't see the world the same at all do we?
You can tell people its all smoke and mirrors but people are buying into it and consuming it in huge numbers.
You my believe its a 'momentary time' but the way in which media is made and consumed has changed dramatically in just the last 2 decades and it will never go back. It HAS changed and WILL change again. For a company trying to make money from media it would be stupid indeed not to try and understand or shape the change.

Believe me, as an old man I could easily deride influencers and streaming and watching concerts in media apps etc ect, but I'd rather understand where we are at and embrace chages. I'm pretty sure non of this is for me - but that's as it should be. Change is aimed at the new generations, not those of us nearer the end of the journey..

if gamers of any age would rather just play, why do so many just watch? Are you suggesting someone is bending their arm and none of them really want to tune in? I don't get what you were implying..

Of course there's no right answer and we can only watch history unfold and see whos right, but I do enjoy the odd barrage of words we share, so thanks for always replying in good faith.

@Titntin One point I missed before, is that gaming used to be it's own market, separated from the rest of media. Gaming was gaming, with it's own approach and trajectory. The biggest change is that that's being ripped away and forcibly glued onto the rest of media. Which mostly strips gaming of what made it appealing to its existing fans to begin with. That market isn't "growing" it's being replaced by a different market being shoehorned into it because it's bigger.

People are buying and consuming, but again, I point to the notion that they're buying and consuming because that's what they're being told they should want and consume. People, as a whole....are frankly rock stupid. You can view it less controversially at the macro-level outside of media. Look at food. Look at restaurants that are trendy, successful, praised. Then look at what they actually sell. Time and time again it's the place that presents itself through marketing and lobby as "high end", and sets a high price, that will earn praise, commendation, not just from customers but from critics, TV, be celebrated and recommended as such a good place. Yet anyone with a clue knows instantly that the food is mediocre to bad, including being industrially made food repackaged....the same garbage from the supermarket..... yet the place near it that makes absolute quality, is ignored.

People don't know what they like and are too "busy" to ever formulate their own opinions on much of anything. Not 15 year olds. Not 50 year olds. We've descended into a society that nobody actually forms their own opinions of what they like nor bases that decision on analysis of options. They let marketing, pricing, and social opinion tell them what they are supposed to like, and they'll buy it, even pay premium for it, and then praise it to not look like they're left out of knowing. Food, art, media, music, culture. Politics. The majority of humans are brainless sheep. For all the "education" that's been added to the world, people seem less intelligent than ever, as a whole. They're simply better trained monkeys than they used to be. I don't know how they can tie their own shoes without a media executive offering a celebrity to show them how.

And notice the media execs that are so ahead of the curve of what "the kids" want......are a bunch of old guys..... and are usually following what the other old guys did that seemed to work.... Media chases its own tail. No matter what disruptive technology comes out, that has always been that way and will NEVER change.

Gaming did its own thing in its own way. What changed is "media execs" like Ryan stepped in and dragged it into the "media" format. Much as I like Layden, he bears some blame as well.

"Change" is not an inherently good thing. Sometimes it's just leaning harder and harder into already bad directions. And in business, following it off the abyss is the default reaction since it's safer than offering a superior alternative.

As for so many watching gaming, again, my point is that's a different market. It's non gamers. If you'd rather watch someone else play games than play games....you're not really into playing games, you're into watching TV. You're not a gamer. But the integration into the console UIs tell us that the execs think those are the gamers. They can't read the room and figure out who's who. The "old guys" at the media companies just see it as one big blur of "what the kids like." Again, it doesn't matter if you're 15 or 50. If you have an hour to blow and your first thought is "I want to watch some vain and obnoxious 28 year old pretending to be an 18 year old targeting 14 year olds while playing video games for the camera", instead of "cool, I can finally work on my backlog, I can squeeze some HzD in now!"......you're not really the video game market. Not current me, or 8 year old me would give up a chance to play a game to watch someone else play a game. In the 8 bit era we had a name for those people: "Player 2"

@NEStalgia Other than 'I dont like it' I really dont get the point in setting out your world view here?
You are surely not suggesting they should sit on their hands and pretend its the 8 bit era are you? Regardless of what is driving peoples consumption, a firm that wishes to be part of the business needs to provide the services and products that people are calling for, weather their needs are being dictated or fabricated or otherwise. If they are buying it, then someone will sell it to them.

What the gaming market was in the old days when it was a club that was 'a little off the beaten track' is not the industry today, and is a completely irrelevant consideration if a company is seeking to make moves in current and future markets.

Hating it because its 'not like the old days' is a pretty weak debating position! I do share many of your thoughts - I just dont think they are at all relevant as to what Sony should be doing.

Liked the player 2 line though

@Titntin My point is they're not actually serving the same market. They're changing markets, abandoning one, and switching to a different market, while trying to pretend they're serving both at once by switching slowly and hoping to con their customers to come along for the ride. If Boeing switches to making cars, because more people buy cars than airplanes, they're not serving the changing needs of the aviation market's newer, younger customers, they're just changing to a different bigger market and leaving their airplane customers high and dry. They can put pop-out wings on the cars, but that doesn't make them airplanes.

SOME of the big video game companies (Sony, under Ryan in particular but they're not alone, but also, nor is it everyone) are switching from the video games market to the media market and gradually (increasingly rapidly) replacing games content with "media" content (a market which games previously were not a part of) because it's a bigger market. But they're pretending their cars are airplanes and the same customers are still part of the market. The existing games market still exists, but they're just a smaller less desirable market than the media market. They want to reposition the games division to the media market.

For Sony in particular, that's not inconsistent considering they were a media triopoly before they were a games company. We're talking about the games studio (SIE) that nearly owned a film company (Sony Pictures/Columbia/Tri-Star) when they nearly merged them and absorbed the latter into the former.

The real split in the industry is between the companies like Sony that want to reposition gaming into the "media" market, and companies like EA and Squeenix that want to reposition it into the gambling/casino market. Plus those that still serve the videogame market.

Yes, selling movies, television and social media, and gambling is more profitable than selling videogames. That was true in the 90's and it's true today. Doesn't mean a company chasing that profit isn't abandoning the actual videogame market. Heck, EA looks to be pivoting back around, away from the casino market and back toward the videogames market.

I mean, if we're solely looking at what Sony should be doing for maximum profits, rather than what we as PS fans want from them as their customers then we should be donning our 3 piece suits and recommending to them to shut down PlayStation entirely, stop making expensive single player campaign games, reposition SIE as a mobile developer, and either sign an Apple contract or reboot Xperia under the PlayStation name, with a revenue focus on recurring payments and NFT. Anything else is wasted money.

@NEStalgia Sorry mate, none of that makes any sense at all to me, and much of it seems irrelevent and totally illogical too. Sony remain committed to what I like best, pushing gaming technology and making the biggest and best single player gaming experiences of anyone. If they also wish to explore or pursue other avenues of buisness, why would I care?
Thank you for your time and efforts to explain your point of view, I do appreciate it, but at this point I can now see I will never understand you, I cant think like that , and would never want to.
Viva la difference!

Take care and thanks again.