No Home Here, PS4
by Phoenix, HSM team writer
As the launch of the PS4 came and went, Home users were fairly quiet about the fact that there was no Home to be had on this new platform. And a soft sigh of resignation permeated the spaces of Home.
The dreaded answer, from the looks of it, is no: no room on the PS4 for Home. For now, Home will live on the PS3 for as long as it is viable. There is no word as to whether it will be rewritten for the PS4 in the future, but as I see it I don’t think that is going to happen. If it were, it would have already been done, or there would likely have been some word of a clean-sheet redesign of Home for the PS4 by now.
For some, it feels like a child being left back a grade while everyone else moves on up.
Let’s face it: the PS4 didn’t spontaneously come out of nowhere overnight. It takes years, from concept to product deployment, to get a new console to market. Had Sony planned to include Home, it stands to reason it would have somehow been a part of this process. At the very least, it would have been announced. Why wait and add it later? That seems to me to be a sort of backpedaling. I’m not saying it can’t be done; I’m simply saying…what’s the point? Home already has a home: the PS3. I don’t think Sony would have made plans to have Home on both consoles, so if it were to be on the PS4, what happens to Home on the PS3? The idea of Home on both just doesn’t seem realistic. Wouldn’t there need to be some type of cross-platform software? Wouldn’t that take some time?
Sony’s silence on the subject should speak volumes. Perhaps it was a sign: one we just didn’t want to see, for fear it meant no Home at all. Now the question becomes this: how long does Home have before the life support is pulled? Will the end be proceeded by a slowdown of new content, or is that actually a sign of the end unto itself? Every week, Home is inundated with new content. It is at the point of flooding by some developers, and yet more and more comes in. There has been a constant barrage of spaces and items. I can’t remember when the last time we had no new content in a week; it seems those inconsistent days were gone by 2009 at the latest.
One could get the feeling that this is all part of a last-push grab for revenue: make as much money as possible from consumers before Home shuts down. But that begs the question of whether or not Home’s various third-party developers are aware of Sony’s plans for Home. In fact, does Sony even have a plan for Home, beyond staying silent for as long as possible so as not to adversely affect revenue gains?
Home was created for the PS3 and has lived there through its growing pains, through developer neglect, through forum complaints and reviewers’ disparaging comments, through hackers and weeks offline. Home has continued to grow and change, to find new users as well as hang on to old ones…but has it continued to stay relevant? Home outgrew its original design concept and remained in open beta. It evolved into more than a jumping-off point for gamers; for some it has become a place of refuge, a place of social interaction they can’t find anywhere else. It is home to numerous free mini games, a re-imagining of Harry Potter, interactive content and more.
This need in us to see Home survive is normal. Once it became a part of our psyche it became something of value to its die-hard users. When something has value, especially emotional, it is difficult to think of it not being there. Losing Home would leave a void in the lives of some of its users.
But is Home valuable enough for Sony? Dedicated Home users see Home as part of their lives, sure; they see it with human emotion attached to it. Sony is a corporation, however, and ultimately to them Home is a piece of the business: one more vertical on the spreadsheet. Home is seen as either profitable or not. No matter how much we think we are spending, and how much we may personally feel Home should stay open because of these expenditures, it may not be so. Nothing that is only marginally profitable will remain indefinitely, if the parent company believes those support resources (personnel, equipment, etc.) can be more profitably reallocated to other, newer initiatives.
Has Home become a resource sinkhole? On one hand it’s been around for more than half a decade, which suggests profitability. On the other hand, the lack of any long-term guidance as to its future, beyond the rumblings that Sony’s DevNet has some sort of master plan for Home through 2014, is somewhat indicative that Home may have fewer days ahead of it than behind it. Ultimately, only Sony can say for certain.
The resources it takes to 
repair the issues with Home, plus the updates, the maintenance, the forum squawking, the cries for more and more free content…these things all bear a cost. Sure, Home is fun for us, and possibly profitable for SCEA, SCEE and a handful of remaining third-party developers, but how much fun is it for Sony? With all they have riding on the PS4, Home right now is likely not even a glint in the romantic eye of a handsome suitor courting new users with its PS4 “Share” features.
I don’t have numbers or statistics to back up my thoughts or comments. And the sad truth is that the people who possibly do have that information are unable to share it. But logic dictates that in order for any business to survive, it has to have net profitability; breaking even isn’t going to cut it in the long run. So I personally believe that as long as it is more than marginally profitable, Home will remain. I think Home could stand on the PS3 indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean it will. New feature implementations such as the challenges and the news reader are welcome hints of a greater plan at work — or, at the very least, measured reinvestment in an aging platform — but it’s awfully difficult to avoid the question of Home’s long-term prospects.
The true creeping death begins when two things happen: when the whales simply stop spending and move on, and when developers stop producing content for the platform. So perhaps it truly is up to us, the consumers, to determine Home’s future. At the very least, Home is still here right now, and that’s as good a place to start as any.
December 2nd, 2013 by Phoenix | 4 comments
Phoenix writes poetry and is a photography enthusiast, along with writing for HomeStation Magazine. She is currently studying for a BFA in Creative Writing and BA with concentration in Photography. psn ID phoenixstorm21
youtube.com/user/phoenixstorm21
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Call me an optimist but I think that Home will be here for awhile yet. Your point about us as consumers dictating how long hit the nail on the head though. Our continued support will determine Home’s fate for sure.
I am still hoping that if it remains profitable that Sony will add an ap to PS4 for use there as well. Not sure if this in in the cards, but we can hope.
Nice article Phoenix.
We don’t know the answer but for the moment we -- the PS Home players -- should encourage the developers, tell them what is bad/good in their space, and, of course, play and have fun in Home.
Sony won’t reveal a secret to us about a possible new PS Home or a completely new social virtual world, based on all the share possibilities delivered by the PS4.
Also I don’t know if developers know something, but I’m wondering why Sony want to attract such person like JK Rowling and create some spaces in PS Home without thinking about Home’s future and the way to attract more people into Home.
Don’t forget that the PS4 launch was chaotic with various PSN problems. Some others apps or functionality are delayed like Gaikai (to stream and play older PS 2/3 games) and that there’s still a “beta” next to the Home logo! We could wait for months or 1/2 years before they show away something.
Only time will tell but we can still enjoy all the spaces available for many months to come on PS3 and make new friends!
:^/ I see PS4 as representing an opportunity to re-write from scratch, adding in support for features that would be too problematic to retrofit into the existing Home on PS3.
Of course, backwards compatibility with our existing inventories would be welcome, especially for our favorite items.
On the other hand, for Sony to close Home up completely would be a shame. There is a definite niche for 3D socially interactive environments like Home. Home’s longevity so far, and the existance of competing venues for the same market tells us so. But despite there being ample competition, there truly is no alternatives. PS Home is years ahead of the others both in terms of user-adjustable customizations, -modifying our avatars’ faces and bodies- and in terms of available content.
I don’t see myself adopting another such venue like Home, if and when, simply because -as Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz- there truly is no place like Home.
I cant see home in its present state being migrated to PS4, so much is being neglected, my old favorite personal spaces are broke with no idea if they are ever going to be fixed, spaces with coming soon signs that have been there years. Games that dont work or take too long to load, previous issues that keep repeating themselves. Plus new issues appearing as well. Theres more in home being neglected currently, than there is being looked after. Which either means Home dies with the PS3 or there will be a total reboot. Thing is, theres a higher number of PSN users that arent really bothered by home so Sony really dont have to rush. But if someone can fix my broken favorite personal spaces id be grateful