PixlBit

I must admit that the service on the PS3 had a good run. Though it might not have fully developed into the vision that Sony wanted (it was still in beta phase as of its shut down), it was still a bold attempt to make something special out of the service to make itself stand out against the likes of Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

Though PlayStation Home ended up being a more poor man’s version of the PC equivalent of Second Life, it still had a uniqueness that was able to make it survive for a little over six years. According to some site stats, the service once had as many as 31 million members. I’m not sure how many of them were active at the time but still that number isn’t half bad for a virtual community service. And over the years of its activity, it has seen many changes and upgrades to what it had to offer. Originally only meant for a place so that 3D avatars of players could gather and hang out quickly turned into an interactive experience where instead gamers could create, dress and decorate their avatars (and choice living spaces) but they could also visit various “Home” spaces created by content providers to either play special mini-games or even take part in special events specific to that Home Space.

Though some little known companies got into the fray, other game companies like Konami and Capcom got into the mix by making special Home spaces specific to their IP’s. Other companies even going as far as making virtual game lobbies for their co-op games. Though most of the Home spaces found were used to help sell virtual items for avatars and apartment decorations, they were mostly spaces where one could kill some time, goof off or generally just enjoy the area that encapsulated the game in question. I personally had fun hanging out at Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution Rooftop Space where the same DDR tunes played on constant rotation to the dancefloor/mini-game offered.

Other places I enjoyed were the Siren Blood Curse Space, hanging out in the spooky atmosphere set in the game with a shibito infested hospital. I even enjoyed the spaces created by IREM till they closed down shop and were replaced by the company that was formed by former IREM employees. The service even went as far as to try to create adventure games within the spaces they offered with rewards ranging from points to cash in at their stores or free avatar gear. By the end of PlayStation Home’s run it became less like a virtual community space and had more akin toward F2P games (especially with the first revamp with games like No Man’s Land, Novus Prime and The Midway) in bringing incentives for people to come back to PlayStation Home.  I myself mostly hung out at the Konami DDR Space. I kind of regret not buying the extra dance moves pack but knowing that I can’t take it with me when PS Home dies….

Sadly for me, despite the best efforts of PlayStation Home, it wasn’t quite enough for me to be an active user of the service. I did try keep active as much as possible but I wasn’t active enough to gather a lot of friends. I will admit that there were times when I didn’t really want to meet people on there, seeing some of the preteen/teen chat room drama that could be found on there from time to time. Despite that I still found myself going back for one reason or another. Even though the offering of trophies and the special “Quest for Greatness” adventure game did help bring me back, I usually ended up being there when I didn’t have anything better to do/didn’t know what to play/had some time to kill.

Plus that one 90 visit Home trophy didn’t unlock.

But in the end I still can respect PlayStation Home for trying something different out of the norm. Even if all the offered services didn’t quite work out for me, like Video On Demand thru Home with Crackle or streaming live events from the Loot Theatre like the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery to the EVO 2011 finals, it still tried to offer something fresh and different in what people would come to expect being offered with a game console. Even if we see another variation of PlayStation Home on the PS4 in one form or another it won’t be able to relive the heydays of the program’s inception and run. I myself will be sad to see it go. I may have started out strong in the beginning, life and other worldly obligations kept me from being too active in that virtual world. It’ll still feel a bit different though turning on my PS3 and not being able to visit my Home Space. On the bright side I can see about freeing up some hard drive space on my system but the loss of PlayStation Home can’t replace that warm feeling I have of reliability in knowing it was there. Here’s to you PlayStation Home and to those who helped keep it running. To those who provided content, kept the network running and to those he kept coming back to either kill time, goof off, find glitches or generally stayed just to have some fun.

It was a grand ol’ time homesters. Let’s do it again one day.

 

At the end of the night, I always dance alone…

Ta-ta

“N”