Hi all, As we all know the PS4 is due in November of this year and as of yet we have not had any official word from Sony on Homes future apart from the news of the stopping of publishing of new content within SCEJ & SCEAsia regions of Home. Personally i find this lack of communication from Sony to it's community to be a total lack of respect and Sony should recall that why Home did not have the best of starts in life and remains to be picked on like a kid being bullied in School by main stream press. It should recall that it has a community of users have have stayed by it for almost 5 years and supported it and even now remain in support of it. What I'm now asking is for the full community to replay to, that being users and Dev's if they wish.So is the lack of communication from Sony about it's future affecting how you use Home?Do you find yourself unwilling to buy content because the future is unsure?Does it affect your use of Home in how much you now use it and put in time to do that latest event or win the newest reward?And let us not forget, it's not just the user community this affects, but also peoples life's who work for company's that make content, many of who count on the community buying Home content to go on, Sony need to recall their own actions or in this case the lack of them is only going to have a bad affect on the Home community's future and the life's and jobs of 100's who's work counts on it. Home as promise and like the kids bullied at Schools many have promise and just need that support to go on to do great things, Home can still see its full promise that it once had in 2005 if Sony give it the support that I'm sure the Ps4 could bring to it and over come its short comings it found on the PS3.
Welcome back, Carla! While I would *like* to say I had the restraint to cut back on spending, that just wouldn't be true. I guess I'll probably end up being one of those people who will enjoy and support Home for as long as possible. Oh look, shiny new stuff!
That you, nice to see Karen did not break the place why i was gone. But leta not forget its not just about spending its how you use Home also.
i have to say it does make a difference, yes home might stay on the ps3 even after the ps4 comes out but everyone knows if home is not on the ps4 also then at some point home will end. there has been a few things over the past few weeks i was thinking about buying but if there is that chance that home will end what is the point of putting my money into it? don't get me wrong i love home but till i know what they have planned for it i will zero money on it and spend more time on games than in home.
I think that Sony should mention something about the topic because the developers are still updating content (of payment) and honestly we are not going to keep buying on Home with a future as uncertain. I currently have stopped buying as did before, won't leave money in a service that could disappear with time.
Ever since Phil Harrison left, Home lost its direction. It would appear that Sony had no idea what it had. So it proceeded to do what most Fortune 500 companies do. That is to look at a product and squeeze it for every last dime of profit to make shareholders happy. Ignoring (or just not realizing) just how much GOOD PR having Home on the PlayStation could do to support its goals. They cut corners. Laid off staff. Mismanaged Home with managers who surrounded themselves with Sony yes men. Creating programs that gave them the appearance of doing good for Home, but in the end run did nothing to support it. It is a cold, heartless move to layoff all your employees who did dev work, turn it all over to 3rd party developers and then destroy what good those developers built by not supporting Home and now scaring people away, making them skeptical about investing in Home's future. These developers are, for the most part, small business who are struggling to make ends meet and Sony, the company who enticed them to start these businesses, is now working against them. Home has had its share of detractors. Mainly the die-hard gamers who think Home is a waste of time. Sony, in their short-sighted wisdom, tried to elevate that image by touting Home as having "hundreds of free games" and then proceeding to ask developers to make games for Home that would never be able to compete with disc based games. When those games had horrible reviews and loads of bugs, it had the reverse desired effect. Had Sony pushed Home as a social platform for gamers and developed projects that would attract more users, we might not be where we are today. The great events we all witnessed in Japan, but never elsewhere, immediately leap to mind. Now we are about to get the next gen console, the PS4. The fact is, Home could be the killer product we have all been waiting for on the PS4, due to its having more resources that Home could certainly exploit. Instead, the future of Home is in serious question. Sony's total silence on the matter has fueled much speculation. None of it beneficial. That brings me to the final sad realization. After those of us who supported Home ever since it started with lots of our hard earned cash and time, it is clear that corporate greed is the only concern. Customer loyalty means nothing. Sadly, not un-typical for a mega corporation the size of Sony. It isn't us that is killing Home. It's Sony. They bear the entire blame if Home ends at some point in the future. I, for one, will not give up. I will continue to support Home as long as I can. If Home is to survive, we ALL need to support Home, now more than ever. If we don't, Sony will point to decreased usage of Home and say, "See? This is why we need to end Home." If that happens, all we just did, was let Sony win. And if it does end, Home's tombstone should read, "Here lies PlayStation Home. We had no idea what we had and we had no idea what to do with it. So we killed it."
I'm still spending a decent amount of cash weekly, on the other hand my use of Home has decreased a lot recently. The lack of communication has had minimal effect, my main reason for spending less time on there is due to other games like Saints Row 4 and Final Fantasy 14 taking up my spare time, and as of today GTAV.
That's the way it should be. PS is, after all , a game console. However, you are still enjoying Home and supporting it with your purchases. Now if everyone did that.........
As bad as the above comments are, picture yourself as a Japanese user of Home. One that has no idea you can create other accounts to go to other regions. JP basicly said 'thanks for your money but we are stopping now'. It's really a slap in the face. If the reason for closing down JP and Asia is simply not raking in enough money, it's Sony's own fault. While JP surely doesn't have the amount of users that NA has, JP could have made more money then it could have. But they dropped the ball too many times. Hell, sometimes I wonder if they even knew there was a ball. It's a sad truth, but I can point to a random person on this forum and he or she could do a better job at running JP Home. Really, really out of touch with what users wanted. The Farm and Kingdom, while nice, are too little too late. tldr; NA's sucess isn't simply because there are more users. Quests, events, sales, free stuff, more content, less restrictions on content, etc. is why people keep logging on to NA. JP could have mimiced them, they didn't so they failed. And Asia... I went there three times and each time the store was buggy and I couldn't buy anything even if I wanted to. What a mess.
Yes, for me it most certainly has. Even more than the frustrating and blatantly careless lack of communication though, is the lack of advancement and commitment to the actual technology (in NA and EU). If you think back about some of the amazing things we saw in Japan Home with the concerts and so many other events, there were real examples of what can truly be done in Home. When I attended those events, it was fun to imagine what the future could hold. Unfortunately, we all now know what the future of Home is in Japan. If the Japanese have given up on advancing the platform, after all they did to show what can be done with it, then realistically, what are the chances that NA and EU will be able to advance it? They still have never done anything even close to what we saw in Japan...and honestly, I don't think they ever wanted to. Home in NA and EU is now just a place for third party developers to get their feet wet in the industry and sell their goods. Yes, Home has grown since day 1 for sure--we have seen advancements with things like LMO's, companions and active items, but I'm talking about far bigger advancements--the likes of what we saw in JP at one time...and more. The sudden announcement about the publishing of new content being discontinued in JP spoke volumes (to me anyways) about Sony's level of commitment to actually moving the platform forward in any way besides allowing independent Home developers to make some money until the PS3 is a thing of the past. It's nice of them to give indie developers a chance, where they may not have had one otherwise, but not good for the users who always hoped to see Home keep pushing the boundaries. I haven't spent as much money as some on Home since the start for sure, but still have spent enough to make it more than just a minor investment. Supporting Home developers is a great and generous thing to do, but I don't feel the same about even that when I know the platform that they are creating content for is not being fully supported by the company that created it. If Sony chooses, for their own P.R. reasons or whatever, to intentionally NOT inform the people who have allowed Home to make it this far (the users), about whether or not it will be on the PS4, then I guess it's up to each individual to draw their own conclusion about what it's future is and how much more they want to invest in it.
I stopped buying stuff because of this. Then I stopped logging on so I wouldn't be tempted to change my mind. I have an enormous amount of money sunk into NA Home, and a smaller-but-still-large amount in JP. I can tell that Sony will shut it all down in the too-near future. Not just new content, but shut down the servers entirely. This is standard practice in the games industry now. Was it published more than a few years ago? Are we still making massive profits? No? Shut it down, no matter how many people still use it. So, all evidence that I ever had that money or that content will disappear. I'm not spending any more of my money on something that clearly has no more than a year left to live, possibly less. It's ridiculous. If they guarantee the service will last until maybe 2018 or so... maybe. But I dunno.
I hope it comes back but with an ignore option that makes you invisible to noobs when you ignore them,
SMH ON THIS ONE... I'm a true and very serious fan of home it saddens me to see such a day coming like this with home I for one do and always put alot of hard time and devotion into home and yes all of my creativity and money into home. I don't think its right what Sony is doing to us those who have been down with them and home from the start this is really getting to me I use to put alot of money into home and wanting to buy so much as I use to do before but now I don't. yes I buy a few things still and that's only because i really do enjoy being on home with family and friends but I'll tell you this I don't buy as much I refuse to why would I when they can't even tell us what's going to happen next with home they make me feel like its going to end and they don't care but will still take money from us and our time for as long as they can and that's not RIGHT!! ..and another thing if home is going you better belive me when I say this (SONY) ill be one of those people who won't be buying or supporting this PS4 no way I feel I've done more then enough with the ps3 and look I can't get not 1 information or security about home for the ps3 or for the ps4 I lost all hope SHAME ON YOU SONY!!!!
Hopefully Playstation Home will continue onto PS4 unfortunately i'm moving on with Playstation Home once i get my PS4 for Christmas
It is the decider for me. If home comes to PS4, then I buy a PS4. If not, then I jump ship and put my pennies into my PC and ( Shudder ) jump ship to second life. Please, PLEASE SONY! Don't let that happen!
I will still keep my PS3, since Home and their games are so much fun, including games, add-ons, etc. from the PSN Store. When I buy Home content, I usually buy in-game content and a few clothes that interest me, but usually spend it on events. I really wish that communication was still apparent in Japan and Asia (including EU and NA), but as someone posted, they dropped the ball too many times.
I hope that I understand correctly & that I "own" the content that I've bought. If Sony discontinue Home I hope they would refund me. I have no interest in games, they have depressed me since circa 1993 when Doom and pc's came along. PS3 being the first platform to pique my interest in many years. I love my PS3, I use it for Internet tv, music, videos, some light web browsing, I like renting a film from the Sony store. I have very few games. I use Home, I play LittleBigPlanet, Derrik the death fin. my kids play some games.
Unfortunately, that's not going to happen Adrian. Sorry to say, but that for me, is now even more a part of the catch with Home in relation to its uncertain future. The purchases you have made will never be refunded (according to the TOS). When the servers are shut down one day, you will simply be left with absolutely nothing to show for all the money that you have invested. However depressing and harsh that seems, it's the very true reality of the situation.
