The metaverse project mark zuckerberg Y Goal It looks increasingly complicated and impractical. Which has led us to remember one of the most twisted moments in recent Sony history: PlayStation Home.
Few remember it and fewer was the number of people who had the opportunity to try this social interaction platform created by the Japanese company. At the time the Playstation 3 It was shown as the greatest beast ever created in the video game and computer industry.
All thanks to its brutal processor CELLwhich was even used by government institutions and academic research projects thanks to its great data processing capacity (for those dates).
At that time, the PS3 looked like a device from the future and Sony wanted to exploit this narrative to the fullest, exploring the technical limits of its console.
This is how in 2005 he gave rise to the project of one of the strangest accompanying platforms in the history of video games: the PlayStation Home.
A digital world that is supposed to be a permanent complement to this console and the others to come. But that ended up being aborted. Here we review the history in broad strokes.
The rise and fall of the PlayStation Home: Sony’s failed metaverse
It could be said that for almost 2 decades we began to think about the concept of the metaverse, only at that time it did not receive that name. They were called simulators. From there arose titles whose fame remains legendary to this day, such as The Sims and Second Life.
Universes with virtual cities where it was possible to build your digital avatar and live with physical qualities and opulence that perhaps were impossible in the real world.
PlayStation Home, after three years of development, was launched in 2008. It was a space to have our own home to our liking, as well as clothes, furniture, and even our friends, whom we would never meet in person but who would be part of that other life
The launch video gives us a pretty concrete idea of what this Sony metaverse was aiming for:
This reality simulation was free if you had a PS3, as back then online play was completely free on the Sony console.
There was a central square to live together and each user could invite up to 15 people to join their activities within the virtual world.
We were there for the launch of PlayStation Home and it looked promising, but after a few months there it became obvious that this was some kind of heavily discounted Second Life.
There were quite a few promotions and commerce insertions, the interface was not so agile for loading and the activities were mostly limited to personalizing our spaces, paying in some cases for accessories or furniture.
Trading between users was prohibited and interaction was actually rather limited, which meant that after the first year the number of repeat users dropped drastically.
Thus, on March 31, 2015, Sony lowered the switch to this project that died immediately. On YouTube there are many videos of his death: