Like that final episode of Brookside where Jimmy Corkhill departs the boarded up Merseyside estate for his new life as the lord of a stately home, PlayStation Home has closed its doors for the last time. The service shut down officially at 08:02AM BST this morning according to Eurogamer.net. The servers were packed as congregations gathered in the Home Plaza for one last rousing rendition of the Running Man – but alas, nothing gold can stay.
The service actually started life as a multiplayer mode for The Getaway: Black Monday, before transforming into a somewhat sterile take on the booming Second Life. Despite being lambasted by some corners of the industry, though, the PlayStation 3 application did garner a fanbase – and it eventually grew into a clunky but interesting virtual world, filled with minigames and microtransactions. Word is that during its peak it was making serious bank for the Japanese giant.
Sadly, it's now just a relic, destined to be remembered for its ugly avatars and bowling alley queues. There was definitely potential here, but despite its best efforts, the platform holder never really came close to realising it. There's no word on whether the firm will take its learnings and launch a better virtual world on the PlayStation 4 – but, to be honest, we wouldn't hold your breath. Farewell, PlayStation Home!
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 6
Yeah, who cares about the potential cancelation of Silent Hills, this is the real story!!!
Never tried it and always thought it looked the most bland thing ever to grace a console!
Still, nice one for trying Sony!
Playstation home was a social hub but I just found it quite boring and like many F2P games - full of micro-transactions.
I really really enjoyed playing those mini games and exploring the various spaces with my friends. I always thought that Home was ahead of its time.. and that's probably what killed it. The loading screens in Home made Bloodborne feel as if it HAD no loading screens. Even once a map was loaded, it took additional time to render all the other players and their costumes. Laggy menus and horrible loading were the only real issues I had.
It was so innovative, I was even able to pre-order Killzone 3 (physical, not digital) from within Home to unlock a really cool Helghast jetpack. There was also a Helgast mini game that allowed you to unlock mulitplayer skill points to use when the game launched. I also had a huge collection of goodies back when games used to offer Home unlocks. MAG particularly had some really neat content with it's own pre-order exclusive (at the time) place (essentially your house). It was designed after a map home to (the noob faction) S.V.E.R and even featured music from the actual game.
My girlfriend signed up for this and after maybe 20 mins got sick of being hit on by sad little boys.
I shed no tears for this. It was ruined, as these things usually are, by idiots.
The concept was always more far reaching than the reality. You were supposed to use it as a place to meet your friends and launch directly into multiplayer games, cutting out the xmb altogether... Or go into a cinema to watch the E3 presentations live with friends... The former was never realised and latter just did not work.
And now all that is left are people moping on the Sony forums saying they'd spent money on virtual wardrobes and furniture that no longer exists. Well what do they expect, they were paying money for NOTHING!
No flowers.
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