nDreams, a company that now is primarily working in the VR sphere creating software for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR, was responsible for bringing Sony’s Playstation Home to life. This social platform was integrated into the PS3 and allowed users to create their own avatar and virtual space in order to socialize between games and explore each other’s worlds. On September 26th, Sony announced that Playstation home will be closing for good on March 31, 2015. nDreams CEO Patrick O’Luanaigh is very melancholy over the Playstation Home Closure, speaking with Gamesindustry about his sadness that the community will be shutting down, and his feeling that Sony under-appreciated the social service:
“Just over six years later [after it launched], in March 2015, PlayStation Home will be shutting its doors. My feeling is one of sadness. Not because Home is closing (the PS3 is entering its twilight years, and the timing makes sense), but because Sony doesn’t appear to appreciate what an incredible experiment PlayStation Home was. Sure, there were many fundamental things wrong with the design of Home. But there was also so much that was right about it. Players loved to spend money on virtual items – the ARPUs were great. But above all, it was the passion – the loyalty generated by Home – that will be long remembered by anyone involved with the platform.”
Support for Playstation Home was a bit rocky at times, which O’Luanaigh blames on the departure of Phil Harrison from Sony, who was the primary champion of PlayStation Home. However, new content slowly trickled in over the years, and Playstation Home was revolutionary in many ways as the first to every provide ever free-to-play console games, huge reward-based communities, gifting, paymium gaming and a host of other unique business models:
“People say that Home was a commercial failure. But we generated seven-figure revenues for several years from Home, and other studios did as well. Try telling us that it wasn’t successful.”
O’Luanaigh is convinced that someone is going to create a virtual world larger than Facebook, and that Playstation Home will be looked back upon as an experiment that came so very close to what they’ve achieved.
Will you miss Playstation Home, or would like to see something else like it? Let us know in the comments.
Source: gamesindustry.biz
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