Any hope that PlayStation Home, Sony's virtual 3D social gaming platform, would one day arrive on the PlayStation Vita or PlayStation 4 was recently dashed as the company announced the service will be coming to an end next year.
PlayStation Network senior community manager Tempest_Fire recently broke the bad news to PlayStation Home hopefuls on the PlayStation Forums.
Specifically, Sony said they would cease publishing new content for the platform starting November 12, 2014. Gamers in the US, Canada and Europe will be able to download content until December 3, 2014. As a token of their gratitude to the community, Sony said they plan to release a series of free content prior to the platform's closure on March 31, 2015.
News of the closure shouldn't be a total surprise as Sony revealed plans to shut down Home in Asia just last month.
The service, which began development in early 2005 and hit public beta in late 2008, was used by tens of millions of users around the world according to the shutdown notice. As GameSpot points out, Home was pitched as a free alternative to Second Life in which users created a virtual avatar of themselves. Despite attracting a lot of attention early on, the project never really lived up to Sony's vision for it.
The company officially blamed a shifting landscape as the reason for the decision.