PlayStation Home shuts its doors for good.

Nearly 8 years since it was first revealed by former Sony boss Phil Harrisson during GDC 2007, PlayStation Home has finally been shut down.

Sony once said that the service would revolutionize that way that gamers interact with each other line, and launched it on PS3 in late 2008 after several delays. But Home never managed to attract the attention or support it needed to live up to those early promises, limping along in Beta for years until Sony finally admitted defeat last year and announced it would be closing the service.

Now, nearly 8 years since it was first announced, it’s gone for good. Sony took the servers offline early this morning.

Unlike some online services which mark their end with major events, there was no big fanfare in the final hours. Sony had stopped adding new content to Home at the start of the year.

Home was originally advertised as a virtual space where players could interact with each other, play minigames, and purchase cosmetic items like clothes and accessories for their avatars. Sony said that players would be able to share videos and music, unlock new content for their games, and touted it as a revolutionary new way to share media. That vision never materialized; while some developers created content or advertised their games on the service, most of the big publishers stayed away, not seeing the value in the service.

Sony has stated that it has no plans to develop an alternative to the service for future platforms, so it looks like what was once heralded as one of the key differentiators between PlayStation and Xbox is gone for good.

Maybe now we’ll finally be able to uninstall it.

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Dale Morgan

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When Dale isn't crying over his keyboard about his never-ending workload, he's playing games - lots of them. Dale has a particular love for RPGs, Roguelikes and Metroidvanias.