PlayStation Home was one of those things you just needed to be there to understand. It was weirdly sterile and stiff, hopelessly convoluted, and surprisingly in-depth. I miss it beyond words. With players searching for more ways to be social, and games like VR Chat exploding in popularity while the Metaverse continues to flop and fumble? I could only dream of a Sony that would put their live-service aspirations aside, try revitalize PlayStation Home. I think that now is the right time for an experience that was far beyond its years in 2008 to make a return in 2025.
Home, Sweet ‘PlayStation Home’
In many different ways, PlayStation Home was a massive success. It had, and still has, a dedicated fanbase. Fans that were willing to devote countless hours of their lives to roleplay in a virtual world. It was a steady cash bringer, too. It offered costumes and other in-game purchases to help players make the world feel a little more like their own. And, most importantly, it was a way for players to meet up with new friends, foes, and even perhaps, fall in love. Unlike games like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, PlayStation Home was essentially a console-MMO that focused less on questing and more on… well, just living your life.
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At first, the idea was scoffed at. Who would want to spend their time and money living in a virtual world? It’s a concept that, at the time, sounded wild and unrealistic. Charging $5 for Horse Armor was basically a sin in the early days of the digital download era. Now, we’ve got Crocs being sold in Fortnite for $10 a pop. So I think that PlayStation Home would be a little better received now on that regard. But most importantly. With PlayStation pulling further ahead than ever during the hypothetical “Console Wars”? People actually have PlayStations, and their friends have them, too.
Having a PS3 at the time was rough. The Xbox 360 was dominating the console generation, and I don’t think I ever got a friend to jump onto PlayStation Home with me during its run. But with the vast majority of my friend group playing on PlayStation 5, getting to explore a world based on the lore of PlayStation. Think Astro Bot, but as an MMO, and tell me that doesn’t sound like a dream come true.
While I can hold out hope for a possible PlayStation Home revolution, I don’t know if Sony is in the same boat as I am. After playing games like Tekken 8 and just hanging out in the lobbies, I yearn for an exploration/mini-game themed MMO like PlayStation Home again. Games like Palia, for example, slightly scratch the itch. Rather than being a combat focused game like other MMOs, it focuses on exploration and just being cozy.
But it just isn’t the same. There was something magic about PlayStation Home that may be more coated in the dust of nostalgia than I’d like to admit. I remember being incredibly daunted by the game when I had the opportunity to play it in my youth. Socializing with strangers on the internet? What is this, AOL? I never got to experience the game as it was meant to. And I long for the choppy, chuggy mess that PlayStation Home was once again.
A dedicated group of fans has brought the project back from the dead, to be fair. Destination Home is doing whatever they can to keep PlayStation Home running on unofficial servers, so players can still experience this world. I do wish, however, that we could see this return in an official capacity. I think the time for it to return is now, especially with all of the advancements in gaming we’ve seen over the past decade. 4K PlayStation Home with PSVR2 compatibility? That could be legendary.
