PlayStation Home in the west is due to follow its Japanese counterpart as it closes its doors next year...
The virtual social network, PlayStation Home, available on the PS3 for free, has attracted quite a following over the years since its release in 2008. Although many scoff at the grand experiment put into place by Sony, PS Home's fans were loyal, and spent a great deal of time making friends, and interacting with other users in an increasingly varied and unique world.
During its tenure on the PS3,PS Home evolved from a simple virtual chat room with some basic games, to a sprawling virtual world, replete with a wide variety of games, music, movies, and a myriad of digital stores and real world promotions. PS Home has launched games, consoles (including the PS4), and allowed everyone in the world to visit E3 from the comfort of their armchair. For many, it really has become a second home.
So, it's going to come as a shock for hardened Homeusers that Sony is following on from the closure of the Japanese incarnation of PS Home, and is closing the American and European Home servers on March 31, 2015. That's right, Homewill be no more, and all that content you purchased will be gone forever. Sony delivered the news via its official site.
“Due to a shifting landscape, PlayStation Homewill cease publishing new content on November 12, 2014. Gamers in the U.S. and Canada will be able to download content until December 3, 2014. As a token of our tremendous gratitude to the community, we will also be releasing a series of free content prior to the platform's closure on March 31, 2015.
We would like to thank all of our fans for their support of the PlayStation Home platform over the years.”
The closure of PS Homewill not only come as a major blow to fans of the service, but no doubt many of the companies that did a lot of business using the virtual world. Lockwood Publishing is one such example.
It's unknown if Sony is planning to revisit Homein some form on PS4, and if the closure of the PS3 service is simply making room for a new version. With Sony already cancelling a PSP version of Homeback in 2009, and the comment about a “shifting landscape,” it's probably unlikely.
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