original

Earlier today, SONY announced that their PlayStation Home services in Japan and other parts of Asia will be shutting down next month. However, the western based servers (and services) for PlayStation Home will indefinitely remain intact. The executive decision to end PlayStation Home services in Asia does not affect SCEA or SCEE because of their operations being independent of their respective territories.

PlayStation Home was first launched about 6 years ago, on December 11th, 2008 when the first Beta was released for public use. PlayStation Home had been what a lot of console gamers may have always wanted on their console. A console exclusive virutal world that can be used to interact with other players on the same console. It is a virtual 3D world run on the PS3's PSN service. Anyone with a PSN account on their PS3 was allowed access to this world using their XMB. Home allowed for SONY partners to advertise, host events, and share information. It also allowed users to customize their avatars as much as they could to make it more like themselves, customize their apartments inside of Home and show off/share the items they've won and collected while playing different games or participating in events.

With SCEJ shutting down a rather interesting feature for the PS3, it makes you wonder what will be shut down next. We are all aware that with the next-gen consoles coming into play this year, the consoles we all know and love will soon become obsolete. SONY hasn't disclosed much information regarding the closure of the service. However, starting on September 24th, virtual items will no longer be available for PlayStation Home users in Asia. The service will completely shut down sometime in March. For those of you who may doubt the success of the service, it has acquired a astonishing 31 million users!

I wonder if anyone in the Se7enSins community is from Japan and has been using PlayStation Home? Probably unlikely, however, I bet there are some American/European members who do in fact use this service. What do you guys think of it being shut down? Are you worried something you guys are using might be shut down next on your beloved PlayStation?

SOURCE