Sony Sidelines MAG, SOCOM 4, and SOCOM: Confrontation

Platform holder pulling the plug in January

by Sammy Barker Wed 17th Jul 2013

Zipper Interactive’s lasting legacy will be powered down next year, as Sony has announced that the online components for MAG, SOCOM Confrontation, and SOCOM 4 will all be switched off on 28th January. Of the three games, only the latter has a single player campaign, meaning that you may want to re-employ your disc-based copies of the other titles as nifty coasters.

In truth, it’s pretty sad to see MAG finally on the verge of closure. The 256-player shooter didn’t appeal to everyone, but gradually garnered a fanatic fanbase following its 2010 release. It really was an ambitious game – and perhaps deserved a sequel to iron out its kinks. With the developer now more dead than the recruits of Raven, though, we doubt that that’s ever going to happen.

[source twitter.com]

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.

1
Confused_Dude
Wed 17th Jul 2013

I know a couple of people who'll be very upset by this. At least they'll have their shiny PS4's for comfort.

2
MadchesterManc
Wed 17th Jul 2013

Its sad to see MAG's servers will be closed. Probably my most played game this generation by a long stretch. It wasn't for everyone but if it clicked with you it was without a doubt one of the best games this generation. The numbers have dwindled a lot so its unsuprising this news.

3
NathanUC
Wed 17th Jul 2013

Going to make active MAG owners pretty upset. Going to be a completely unplayable game at that point... adding a bot patch would be absolutely awesome.. but we all know it won't happen.

4
ztpayne7
Wed 17th Jul 2013

At least they're giving us 6 months. I'm not completely surprised - I was at gamestop the other day - and besides knowing that MAG had been knocked down to .99, gamestop told someone they weren't accepting it in trades. They even took an old sports game for .20, so I knew something sounded funny.

Maybe I'll give mag a couple more goes. I used to play it a bit

5
Zikrayrus
Wed 17th Jul 2013

Sad, it was a pretty amazing game. Let's hope someone else might be able to pick it up and give it a sequel it needs.

6
Jaz007
Wed 17th Jul 2013

How is it that the servers for a game like MAG are going down, but the serves for a game like the original Lost Planet are still up? (I'm not joking, you can still play LP online, I just checked and saw 3 matches with about 3-4 people each,)

7
NathanUC
Wed 17th Jul 2013

@Jaz007 Those games might not use dedicated servers. They probably use a single player to host the match. It's a much less smooth/reliable way to do things, but it's a helluva lot cheaper.