by BONZO, HSM team writer

Qore was once a subscription based interactive magazine offered to North American clients by the PlayStation Network. If you remember the PlayStation Underground Jampack discs, it came about to replace that series. European clients have a counterpart produced by the team behind PlayStation: The Official Magazine with FirstPlay.

Since the PlayStation Network became fully established with the PlayStation 3, there really was no need for a hard tangible disc format when players could easily download the content digitally. So essentially it saved on print cost for packaging, disc production costs – which included the CD-ROM content – burning a disc, printing a label on it, and also the shipping costs of sending a hard format to all subscribers.

The beginning of Qore was initially met with a lot of criticism, with concerns that PlayStation would push for a pay for play network service the likes of Xbox Live. Sony never introduced a mandatory subscription service to the PlayStaion Network, but it did introduce its own incentive subscription program with PlayStation Plus.

Initially, you had the option of purchasing individual Qore episodes or an annual thirteen episode subscription. It later became introduced as a free of charge feature for PlayStation Plus subscribers. In the past you have been able to see segments of this well-crafted digital journal that has given us detailed insight into upcoming PlayStation titles, and Blu-Ray features in the Home Community theater. Sadly after nearly four years, Qore sees an end with issue 47.

FirstPlay EU's Qore

At the moment, the last eight episodes and a few others from the past are available for free download, with previous episodes available for purchase for $2.99. I highly recommend you download and check out the free episodes available, even if it is features for games that have already been released. Who knows, they may change your mind about whether to buy them or not, if you haven’t already. If you’d like a blast from the past, episode six had a thorough feature of Home before it launched in 2008.

Qore was more than just a digital magazine. What made it unique and an awesome digital reference was that it was built into an application. What that means is that you basically downloaded it as you would a game from the PlayStation Network store. Episodes were even listed in your PSN game library. You launched the application and it presented a menu with the few titles that were featured for that episode, sometimes including a segment from the host on a non-game related story, a Blu-ray spotlight, a preview of the upcoming issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine, and a Download Center.

Each title that was covered for that month was split into three segments. You had the main high-definition video with in-depth footage of the upcoming game, along with interviews with the developers that gave you more insight into the feature title and the developer’s own input into it. It’s always such a bonus to see the real people behind the games and the passion that often goes into the development; somehow learning about the artist helps to appreciate the art just a little bit more. If it was a sequel, you got a bit of history on the franchise and how it has progressed. One of my favorite aspects was the bonus of concept art included for each title, with the option to save all or a cropped section of it to your hard-drive for use as a wall-paper. The third segment usually had the cover art for that game with ESRB rating and multi-player information.

Games weren’t the only things covered, there were also upcoming Blu-ray releases. It related information as features you could expect to find in the disc, release date, and a trailer of the movie, with some information from cast and crew when available. Some featurettes let you get to know the hosts – of which there were a few in nearly four years – a little better as they got to explore stories in their travels that weren’t specific to a game but had cultural relevance.

One of the incentives for purchase of an annual subscription to Qore was the occasional Beta access for upcoming games, and like the Jampack series, it sometimes included exclusive game demos from the Download center. These features began to disappear once the PlayStation Plus service was introduced, as they became incentives for a Plus subscription, and was later replaced by an exclusive gift dynamic theme for your XMB background. With their last episode they generously gifted subscribers with the Qore arcade which includes twelve mini games to remember them by.

Whether you experienced Qore from the beginning or not, whether you were a fan or not, it is a sad thing to see a long running series go. Forty-seven episodes may not sound like a lot, but when you consider that is nearly four years, and countless man-hours to put together every month, the toll ads up.

PlayStation Plus subscribers have every Tuesday update to the PlayStation Network store to look to for new content, and had every first Tuesday of the month to a new Qore episode to look forward to. With nearly four years of continuous run, it outlasted most television series these days. As you step back and see the progression you can see the evolutionary path it inevitably had to take as PlayStation Network continues to evolve. With most exclusive content like beta access and demos available as incentives for Plus subscriptions, and video features available through Pulse, it is nonetheless sad to see Qore go. From all the fans we bid a fond farewell to all the hosts of past and present, as well as all the people behind the production, who did an amazing job and wish them the best of luck in their new ventures. You will be missed.

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