Sorry Folks, No E3 in Home This Year
by ted2112, HSM team writer
In an announcement Friday, SCEA confirmed that there will be no E3 presence in Home this year.
Although I don’t like the decision, I am not privy to the details behind it; therefore, I can’t comment on Sony’s reasons for this. I can, however, feel a bit embarrassed as a Home user and incredibly disappointed by the perceived disrespectful manner of this large snub.
E3 is next week. Next week. This announcement was made a mere five days before the start of this epic gaming event that has always had a very special place for Home. This was something in the works most likely for several months, and only now are we being informed, five days beforehand. I can’t even make an appointment to get a hair cut in five days.
To add insult to injury, Sony’s resources for community involvement in E3 are only available in app form to PS4 owners in the United States. In short: you must be a registered SCEA PSN user in the USA and download the app on your PS4. This to all intents and purposes shuts the door on a large, very loyal and vocal community of PS3 owners — potentially far beyond the limited Home user base.
To say this isn’t sitting well with the Home community is an understatement. Rarely have I seen the PlayStation forums blow up like this. Many people are expressing their disbelief and disappointment, and when I say that, I’m being kind.
It makes you wonder: how difficult would it have been to show a live stream in the Home theater? Or make an announcement about the absence of E3 in Home months ago? Granted, there’s the concern over not sharing bad news unless you have to, and who knows when the app was actually delivered to SCEA and certified for deployment, but we are an understanding group. We get it; we know that Home is what it is. We know we are not the narrow focus of Sony like we once were. And that focus has now shifted to the PS4.
For the most part, I think we’re okay with that. What we’re not okay with is being treated like an afterthought. And I think that is why this event (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) feels like such a gutpunch to some Home users.
Sorry, folks: no E3 in Home this year. And unless we see a one-eighty from Sony down the road, maybe never again.
Even though the doors of Home are still open and new content is still filling the virtual shelves of Home marketplaces, this 
decision to not include Home users in E3 — the one annual event that truly did bring a lot of new blood into Home, made Home feel connected to the rest of the gaming world at large, and for a brief moment made Home the centerpiece of the PS3 (as it was originally designed to be) — will leave a lasting bad taste. Worse, there really is no way an app — no matter how robust — can accurately replicate the wonder of a 3D recreation of the E3 PlayStation pavilion. To not incur the expense of building such an attraction for the PS3 install base seems remarkably short-sighted; the PS4 adoption rate may be very high at the moment, but we’re still talking about a massive disparity in total users.
I’m sorry, Canada, and sorry to all the Home users — and PS3 users in general — who previously got to share in the excitement and feel like a part of E3; it was always one of the highlights of Home’s yearly events for me, and one I really felt brought us all together as a community.
I will still watch the E3 highlights on TV and the Sony conference online, but as much as I don’t want to say it…it just won’t be the same.
June 7th, 2014 by ted2112 | 9 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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It was a bad corporate mistake from Sony top to bottom the way it was handled. I have been upset about this the entire week. why the week? because the signs were all there. No comments from Sony when multiple threads and comments were asking, because or Twitter retweet that was fresh and very respectable was retweeted over 30 times fell on deaf ears.
My personal opinion and I mentioned this in the forums among a bunch of other things.. It’s been just over a year since I felt that Sony still cared about the community and all that we have been asking is for them to care about us as much as we have for the service. All this was handled wrong. Business I understand but for Sony to drop this PS4 app news in the middle of some guys thread and bail without any additional information about the E3 Home event not being in Home was disturbing. a forum member tracked down that info on the Sony blog.. The writing is clearly on the wall.
TY, HSM for doing all you do.
Get to think they knew it would come out some where, but just didn’t care. Perhaps the home community is too insignificant to be bothered about it. Or they think we will release a new top or reward next week and alls forgiven. Perhaps as a business it’s doomed to fail but at least treat people with some respect for trying to help make it work.
This is another nail in the coffin I am afraid. By all accounts Home has become an after thought where Sony is concerned. Their silence and their lack of respect for all of us who have spent a great deal of time and money making Home a success for so long is very disheartening. I feel most sorry for the developers who are still trying to make money and have a lot still invested in Home for the next year or so. This is a sad state of affairs.
I think Sony should have kept the status quo. The band on the Titanic played until they could no play more..There are still new people joining and experiencing Home every day.. I think this was a bad call on their end.
Yes.
Home is sadly in its Fat Elvis days now, it’d be in much better shape if the people who ran it actually gave a damn about the people who use it. Still no answers as to whether or not Home will be on PS4, ongoing negligence, lack of communication, and apathy from the Home staff, trolls, fams, and other troublemakers on Home still being allowed to go unpunished, the discontinuation of new content for the Hong Kong and Japan regions, and now this. That was really cowardly how that one blog poster told everyone on a Friday the bad news about no E3 on Home and then fled, it shows a severe lack of respect for the customers that have paid his definitely undeserved high salary since Home’s inception. A lot of people have been saying that this move is yet another sign of the end times for Home, and as much as I hate to admit it, they’re probably right. Odds are given the high level of disrespect the Home staff have shown us, Home will be shut down for good by the end of the year. The Home staff doesn’t care about us, and when the end comes in the very near future, they’ll most likely handle this with the same lack of class and respect that they’re known for all too well as of late. Namely letting us know with little to no notice. As much as it pains me to say this about Home, the end is nigh.
Sometimes when a business is conceived it sounds a good idea, but in reality it doesn’t matter how much hard work is put in by its owners, developers and customers, what it needs and what it can afford are too far apart to make it a success. The band played on in the titanic because it had no choice. We as home users do have a choice, there are enough life boats to save everyone. If Sony truly thought that home would be the best and most profitable way to show E3 they would of done it. Reality is saying it isn’t. We seem to have a massive discrepancy from the amount of users on home and the amount that seem to be bothered on home via other media. I believe last figures mention were something around 20 million users has used home at least once. But only 50000 ( that’s a generous figure ) use other social media and click like on home related stuff, most are well below that figure. That’s about 99.5 percent of home users that either don’t use social media or don’t care enough about what’s going on to click one button. When out of the 90 million psn users. 37 million users do have social media accounts or have enough interest to click like. Thats about 40 percent. On average most of homes competitors seem to be able to get 10 percent plus onto they social media sites. All these figures are there to see just look on all the social media out there.
Here’s what I don’t get: approximately 82 million PS3s sold globally versus 8 million PS4s. Why is Sony marketing to the converted?
The people you want watching the E3 conference are PS3 owners who haven’t upgraded yet, yes? Why shut out Canada and all of the global users who’ve figured out how to access NA Home? Give the PS4 the app, but don’t write off 90% of your users because they haven’t upgraded. That’s remarkably short sighted.
Sony could have killed the booth and just given us a theater with a T-shirt reward and made people happy. They also could have taken two minutes to tell the community through their official forums that no E3 event was coming. It’s astounding to see how poorly this was handled. Even if you’re just talking about a few thousand customers, those are a few thousand loyal customers, and it doesn’t cost any extra to post an explanation on the forums.
Instead they run to the blog and try to paint this like it’s a good thing. Smart customers know better. Given the loyalty that Home users have shown, Sony should be giving us reasons to buy a PS4, because there’s a good chance we’ll continue to be loyal customers. That’s not happening, and it says a bit about a company’s arrogance when that company feels it can ignore a group of loyal customers.
Looking at a second time I’m not sure whether that app was heavily sponsored, even commissioned by someone else. Seems amazon have a big hand in the app plus it’s released the app in USA only because Sony rewards aren’t available anywhere else except the USA. Looks like Sony haven’t done anything for e3 except put it on they blog.