I can tell you right now that a lot of my items are ready for 1080p. The Mysterious Doll for instance will look amazing in 1080p. But it will still take up 22 furniture slots unless someone updates it.

The PS2 is still selling over 4 million units a year. If the PS3 hangs around for another 6 years or more (even after the PS4 release), I see Home still having new things coming out for a while.

Remember that Second Life is still alive.

“Nice bed, but what’s going on, you can’t lay down, or do emotes or even hug each other!?”

Or

Avi 1: “Hey, look at that dude. What’s wrong with his eyes?”

Avi 2: “Oh, he’s on a PS3, that’s why they look so dead and lifeless lol. He should get a PS4″

We can still view websites coded in the 1990s on our modern browsers. Why couldn’t Home work the same way? Sony has proven itself adept at developing future-looking technology; how many of us thought we could use a PS3 as a 3-D movie player back in 2007?

The real question to ask about Home is when we’ll get tired of its graphics, and how the transition to the PS4 will be handled. Adding more features, more customization options and new types of games will be a given on that platform, but a change in the graphics engine would raise the question of what happens to everything we already bought. Do we just start over from scratch? Would we want to?

Ultimately, Home content is like any other kind of DLC…it’s only valuable as long as we’re interested in the game that runs it. We’re paying for the experience and buying something that on its own has no measurable value. There’s nothing wrong with that, but consumers need to be aware of what they’re doing when they spend their money.

I wouldn’t expect a refund for DLC for a disc game if the disc stopped working, or if the console I owned could no longer play the disc. I look at Home content the same way.

Welcome your furry overlords. Welcome them.

The end of Home huh, something that goes through my mind a lot actually. If it’s something that life has beaten me into submission with, it’s the logic that EVERYTHING must end. Funny you mentioned the Mayans and their umm “predictions” however, I have come up with a theory about that! But I won’t go into it here, apparently (according to those I’ve told this to) it’s too plausible and therefore too scary to contemplate. But Home, like everything else, will end. And I may or may not be there for its final song.

I think Home has taken Sony to unexpected places, and so far it’s a pretty original template for the idea of a virtual world. Even Second Life can’t match it for visuals because of the many-and-differering PC models that SHOULD be able to run it. Yet I have a feeling Sony won’t just whip the Home rug out from under our feet, instead I do see a transition over to the PS4 platform. If you can run or adapt old PS2 games to run on PS3 or even PSP, Vita etc then you can tap into the Home servers with a PS4. the fundamental difference will probably in the item qualities (ie visuals), lighting effects, texture detail and load speeds. I’d imagine the two platforms would be able to reach onto the same servers, only difference will be those with PS3s will see a LOT of ghosts as the PS3 struggles to load up the finer detailed clothing or personal spaces of the items available for PS4 owners. Eventually through frustration people will jump ship to the better, faster machine.

Home makes Sony (and all the Home-based) companies too much money to just switch off the servers on a whim. Oh, and whoever said about LW making their own games; I think they’ve been creating their own music based version of Home for PC for quite some time now! Shame about the real world ending at Christmas this year though, think we can get a refund on THAT!? lol

I really feel sorry for some of these developers if Home just stops with the PS3. I hope that Lockwood will generate enough revenue and experience to develop full games by then.

How much new product development will there be for Home after the PS4 rolls out? Who knows. But, like Friendster in America, it will soldier on for a good while.

Even so, the inevitable end must come. I won’t regret the money spent, nor will I expect a refund. I’ll simply look at it as an experience which enriched my life for several years — a trick that’s very rare to pull off in the gaming industry.

Will there be further improvements to the social interface of Home? Perhaps. But I must confess a deep curiosity as to what could Sony could deploy to supersede it using today’s technology. Time will tell.

Home will end some day, I agree 100%, but we have a very unique position here that I haven’t seen at other big games. Our voices here at Home are actually listened to by Sony. I feel the intimidate future of Home is totally in our hands, and although I worry about that Beta tag still being on the game and the PS4 questions, I think Home will be around for many more years. Great article Strom