It's now been more than six years since PlayStation Home shut its doors, an online PS3 experience where you could meet other real-life players, take part in activities together, and just sort of hang out. Think of it as a knock-off Second Life and you're along the right tracks, but the whole thing certainly had a unique Sony charm. It has now been discovered that Sony very recently renewed the trademark for the PlayStation Home service, handing them rights to the name until 2028. However, you shouldn't let this discovery get your hopes up for the service's return.
All this will very likely be is Sony covering its back and ensuring it has the rights to a name it once used in a meaningful manner. However, that hasn't stopped fans from theorizing what PlayStation Home could look like in the modern era. Many suggest a revival alongside Sony's upcoming next-gen PSVR headset that works a lot like VRChat. That could be pretty cool, especially if it brought back all of the customisation and activities PlayStation Home used to have. Others have linked it to another very recent trademark renewal — that of the Soho Square kind. We're not so sure about that though, since that name seems perfect for a reboot of The Getaway (please make this happen, Sony).
It's highly unlikely anything will come of this trademark renewal, but it's always fun to speculate what PlayStation Home could look like on PS5. Would you be interested if the service was brought back? Get dreaming in the comments below.
[source resetera.com]
Comments 38
I really loved PS Home conceptually, and I think they got much closer to realising its early ambition after a few years. Unfortunately, its reputation was forever tarnished by its launch, which was very barebones.
Uhhh... yeah I dunno if I would want something like Second Life....
Playstation Home using unreal engine and fortnite character design will be great I think 😃
A VR Home would be phenomenal. Maybe we’d even finally get our trophy room!
PlayStation Home deserves a comeback, really was before its time
Just give me a PS5 port of Habbo you bobbas!
Honestly one of the biggest issues facing Home was the technological limitations of the time. With PS5, loading could be near eliminated, so there is much more potential if Sony did choose to go down this route
Want that back but no vr.
They'll probably just be using the name for something else like Pokemon Home where you store all of your Pokemon online, only we'll use it to store our trophy and save data or something.
Home was hitting it's stride when they cancelled it, if they could make it work in VR Id' consider that a win for them. Are there currently any VR worlds among the other popular VR devices? I mean surely there must be but I can't think of any. Free Realms probably could have done well during a year long pandemic lockdown, see Animal Crossing. Sony can have Playstation Home VR ready for the next disease. And there will be a "next" disease - see Swine Flu, bird flu, West Nile - well you get the idea.
This is back from 2009, a decade before Covid.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702748/
VR would be great, but I’ll take any version.
Is there anything on the PS4 that is like PlayStation Home?
PS Home was a cool place to hang out and play bowling with the strangest people. Good stuff.
I was there from the beginning, where they allowed voice chat for people in your vicinity. Unfortunately, the VC was completely toxic in public spaces, so it got removed. But the shopping mall, bowling alley, central square, movie theater, and home space were cool. I created a Japan account to get the Pac-Man and Dig Dug arcade cabinets for my Home space...and you could actually play them! Home is the reason I bought Echochrome, which is an awesome PS3 digital only game. Watching whatever the stream was in the theater was so cool...this in when Netflix was simply a mailed (post) DVD service.
Of course, the negatives were plenty. Load times between zones were awful, as was the navigation system. I'm not 100% sure, but Home was my first introduction to microtransactions (I bought a snowman head for $0.49...and maybe a table ornament I thought was cool). I left for a couple of years and came back and Home had completely transformed. The spaces had expanded and the avatars were crazy looking.
Still, it was cool.
@KnightRider1982
Rec Room if you have PSVR.
Can't see why they can't have portals into your games in Home. So if you and friends have the game, the portal is visible to you all and if you jump in from Playstation Home you all join the same co-op / team game
Just out of curiosity, why bother renewing a trademark for something that already has PlayStation in the title? It’s not like someone else could trademark it, right? I’m missing something here and I don’t know what it is haha
I think GTA online has largely replaced Home...if Sony were to bring it back, they would have to make a ton of fun gameplay mechanics for it to be worthwhile.
Back in the pshome days you could find me milling about around that silent hill haunted house! Trying to get in lol
It sounds awesome, but it would suffer from the same shortcoming that Dreams suffer: the incapacity for creators to monetize their work.
Solve that and Sony will see these type of games/services go to the next level.
It can't be that hard. The benefits far outweigh the costs.
I could take Home or leave it, personally.
But the Xi AR game they had in there... that was genius.
I miss visiting my apartment in HOME Well I bought a Sackboy and Cat in HOME and I always wonder if they are ok BRING IT BACK SONY PLZZZZZZZZZ!!! It was nice sometimes just to walk around HOME and just waste a bit of time really.
Make it happen Sony!
I never used home, but I’d love for it to be revived as a PSVR chat with mini games. That’d be dope.
@lacerz That's exactly how I remembered it. I was in college when Home debuted and my roommate and I had a great deal of fun wandering around for the first few days. By the weekend we had forgotten about it and I'm only reminded of the service by random articles such as this.
Tons of potential, fell completely flat.
As someone else said. GTA online is "Kinda" the modern day PS Home currently. With apartments you can customise and places you can go with others.
Still it would be cool to see a new version. With less of the limitations from 2 generations ago.
I was not into the social part of PS Home. But did enjoy the daily quest to play mini games and more! Ended up getting all the trophies also. I would purchase A PS Home like game that gave you stuff to do daily or weekly. That allowed to to earn and purchase Items.
The arrogance of pushsquare to say it's highly unlikely anything will come of this. You have no more clue than anyone else does. And I suspect you are wrong. According to Jim Ryan and Red Tech Gaming Sony has huge plans for PSVR 2. In fact tgey are insanely ambitious. This also has alot to do with their partnership with Epic. Sony's long term goals are to be able to put people's actual avatar's into games or a Home like community area. Imagine watching one of your friend's competing in a fighting game or a sports game and you are viewing it from the stands from your Psvr headset with your actual friends by your side. Or inviting your friends to a house you have curated or going to a bar or club or watching a first run movie in imax with your friends. The possibilities are nearly endless and I believe this is what Sony is trying to accomplish. How far in the future this is remains unclear but it is clear Sony views VR as a huge opportunity. Playstation home had some hardcore devotees and if they could pull off the things I've mentioned above with PSVR 2 as well as provide the requisite killer games I suspect it will sell far more than the 7 million the original sold.
@Exlee300p
A bit harsh, don't you think? Step back from the ledge mate. And yes, I did appropriate that term.
Standard practice to renew trademarks in this manner, it saves any blushes. For the sake of a couple of hundred quid they avoid anyone else applying for the now, lapsed TM and thus, avoid any negative stories up the line.
Most corporations this size manage huge portfolios of IP which will often be renewed automatically.
I used to love ps home just to play ice breaker on those arcade machines, was a little like super breakout from early 80s. The bowling wasn't too bad either! With a nice lick of paint I think it would go down well when I'm not in mood for playing games, an hour or so before I log out! 👍
I don't see them bringing Home back, plus I have zero nostalgia for this.
This is probably just the future user interface of PSNow. Cloud gaming done in a unique and unexpected way.
I actually liked Playstation Home on PS3...it was just something different for its time. I also liked the Free Realms game for PS3 too, as I found myself playing both for hours. Home was just fun, it had plenty to do, but I wasn't big on paying high costs for just a little furniture (some was just a little too expensive), and of course with purchasing the items, and finding out that you basically lost them after they closed down the service, was a big letdown.
I'd love to see it come back, but I would hope that the loading times would be worked on if they did, and letting your character actually talk would be kind of fun too. Maybe it could make a comeback, just like I'd like for some of Sony's old IP's to make a comeback too, but who knows...maybe Playstation 6 will have a big comeback of titles!!!!
I think ps home should be used to promote games. Maybe it lets you play a level from a game through streaming while in home or something like that. You should also get outfits if you pre order games too.
I did spent a couple bucks on it. It was interesting to me, but now I have irl friends so idk if I'll use it like I did before.
A vr chat would be cool tho.
I remember PS Home also had hover racer game and I think there's no better way for Sony to bring back WipeOut.
I hope this means we'll be going back to this. I really loved it.
@vict0RGM cosmetic items? In game currency? Membership benefits? Cmon it’s not that hard to think of.
@Omnistalgic gta online isn’t a social sim at all. It’s completely the opposite and I rarely saw anyone who’ve used gta online for social benefits.
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