Just this Friday, Sony announced an end to the PlayStation Home service. According to their blog, Sony will be shutting down the service on March 31, 2015.
However, this is not the only step in Sony’s plans to end the service. The company will only allow Home users to download content until December 4, and they will stop releasing new content by November 12. Until that point, Sony will release all kinds of free new content for Home, the blog reports.
The History of Home
This announcement marks the end of a unique note in the PlayStation 3‘s history. Sony originally intended PlayStation Home as the thing that would set the PlayStation 3 apart. It was a social experiences other consoles, at the time, simply couldn’t offer; like a cross between Xbox Live and Second Life. It’s no wonder that Sony hyped it as much as they did.
However, the service could never match that hyped success. The service was widely panned, and not many people bought into it. The rhetoric from Sony’s blog posts hints as much. Despite the PS3 selling at least 80 million units worldwide, only “tens of millions of users” bought into the Home experience. It’s honestly surprising that Home lasted as long as it did.
