PlayStation Home v1.3 Available Today

After some delay, version 1.30 of PlayStation Home will finally be released later today. The major update to PlayStation Home adds many new features including Universal Game Launching, In-store Item Preview, new Emotes and Actions, new types of items and a whole load of bug fixes. Check out the detailed changelog below.

New features in 1.3:

• Universal Game Launching
  • You can now Game Launch any title from Home.
    • There are two categories of titles you can launch from Home – simplified and full.
      • Titles with full Game Launching support are now listed in separate sections of the Menu Pad, and are represented by separate icons to make the difference clear.
      • With simplified game launching, you will be limited in terms of multiplayer options that you can specify in Home. However, you can still select these options from the front end of the game that you launch into.
  • You can attach comments to your Game Launching session that other players can read before joining.
    • Comments can be a maximum of 16 characters at the moment.
  • Because so many more games will now trigger Game Launching we’ve changed it so that the Game Launching alert will only appear if you insert the disc while in Home, not if you just have the disc in when starting Home.

• In-Store Item Previews
  • You can now preview items of clothing on your character in 3D.
    • This includes the ability to preview multiple items of clothing at the same time and see what different combinations look like.
    • The items you are previewing can be reset back to normal by pressing [SQUARE].
  • You can also preview items of furniture in 3D.
  • The preview is available when viewing the details of a particular item; after a short pause it will automatically replace the thumbnail image.
  • You can rotate and zoom your view once the preview is active.

• Item Options
  • Rentable items can be rented from the store for a set period of time.
    • You can see the start and end date for a rentable item in the “About” section for that item.
    • You will be warned with an alert message 24 hours before the period of use on a rentable item expires.
    • Rentable items can be renewed from the original store in which you got them or directly from the Menu Pad.
  • Limited use items are purchased with “uses” from the store (like tokens) which are consumed when the item is activated.
    • You can see how many uses of a limited use item are left in the “About” section for that item.
    • You can acquire more uses of an item from the original store in Home or directly from the Menu Pad.
  • Portable items are objects that you carry around with you, like the Bubble Machine, Camera, and Shrink Potion. Dates and details regarding these items will be announced shortly.
  • Portable items have a label above them displaying the name of the item and the name of the owner. There is a toggle in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Personal > Portable Items” where portable item labels can be turned on or off.
  • There are additional options to control the display of portable items:
    • Portable items can be hidden individually by selecting “Hide” from the action menu of each item. There is also a hide option in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Personal > Portable Items.”
    • The Home Safe Screen (accessible by pressing [SELECT]) has an option to hide all portable items in that space.
    • Ignoring someone in Home will hide any portable items they have active and stop you from seeing any other ones they might put out while you’re both in the same space.
    • Adding someone to your PSN block list will permanently hide all portable items owned by that person.
  • To help organise your purchases there is a new section of the Menu Pad under “Personal > My Purchases” that lists and categorizes all of the items you have bought.
  • There is also a new system for managing your portable items in the Menu Pad under “Personal > Inventory”. You can find more information about an item, as well as deactivate it, via this menu.

• New Emotes
  • We have added new Emotes that will expand your ability to express yourself in Home. These include:
    • Action emotes. These are available under the “Action” section of the emote menu. There are currently two examples:
      • Flip a coin and report whether you got heads or tails in local text chat.
      • Thinks of a number between 1 – 100 and report the result in local text chat.
    • Poses. These are emotes that your character will perform and hold until you move or select another emote. These are available under the “Pose” section of the emote menu. Note: Male and female characters have different poses available.
    • New seating options. There are two additional male emotes for sitting on the floor available under the “Sit down” section of the emote menu.
    • Revised emotes for “Shy” and “Giggle”.

General Improvements

• Cache Size
  • There is now an option to change how much disc space is used to cache data in the Menu Pad under “Settings > Change Cache Size”.
  • Currently you can choose between 3, 5, 8 and 12 GB.
  • The more disc space you allocate the less need there is to re-download data once the cache fills up.
  • When running Home for the first time you now have the option to specify how much disc space Home may use to cache data.

• Advanced Targeting System
  • Different types of target are now ‘weighted’ so you can more easily target the things you want to interact with (such as games or screens).
  • The system now takes much greater account of what the camera is looking at when deciding what you are trying to target.
  • If you are having trouble targeting something you can more easily re-target to it using left and right on the d-pad or left stick.

• Pool Improvements
  • When lining up a shot you can now raise or lower the cue by moving up or down on the left stick.
  • You can also put spin on the cue ball by pressing [CIRCLE] when lining up a shot and then moving the striking position around with the left stick.
    • Strike lower on the cue ball for back spin, higher for top spin and to the left or right for side spin.

• Queuing
  • You can now queue up to play any occupied game that supports queuing.
    • You can only queue for one game at a time. If you join the queue for another game you will leave your current queue.
    • When the game becomes free people waiting to play will be given the chance to play in the order they queued. If you miss your turn to join the game or leave the instance, you will be removed from the queue.
    • While queuing for one game, you can still play other games in the space if they are available.
    • You can check which game you are queued for and your position in the queue under the “Queues” section of the Menu Pad.  You can also choose to leave the queue from here as well.

• Clothing Options
  • We have added a Composite clothing items category.
    • These are items of clothing that fill more than one ‘slot’ at the same time (for example a jumpsuit might cover your torso and legs).
    • They are accessible from the menus for any of the slots that they fill (for example the jumpsuit would be accessible from both the torso and legs menus).
    • When you put on a composite clothing item it replaces the clothing items in all of the slots it affects.
    • When you take off a composite clothing item your clothes will revert to what you previously had on in all of those slots.
  • We have added a category for Outfits.
    • Outfits are collections of two or more clothing items that are put on and taken off together.
    • There is a new “Outfits” menu in the “Clothing” section of the wardrobe where you can access any outfits you own.
    • Depending on how an outfit is set up you may be able to put on the individual pieces of it or you may need to put the whole outfit on at the same time
    • When changing clothes or customising your character pressing [CROSS] will now confirm a change whereas pressing [CIRCLE] will cancel the change and return you to the previous menu.

• Miscellaneous Improvements
  • There is a new background image on the front end.
  • We have improved when and how we check for items that you own.  As a result the speed with which you log in to Home or move between stores has been improved.
  • Relocation between areas is quicker.
  • The collision on bowling pins has been improved.
  • The menu available in the Menu Pad has been rearranged to make options easier to find.  In particular the “Settings” menu has been broken into several categories to accommodate all of the new options.
  • There are two new options in the Menu Pad for changing how Home is displayed on your television.
    • Screen size and position can be changed under “Settings > Adjust Screen Position and Size”.
    • The brightness of the screen can be changed under “Settings > Adjust Gamma”.
  • The leader of a club may now blacklist people from being able to join their club, via the admin menu. Anyone who is blacklisted and attempts to join the club will see a message explaining that they cannot join and why.