Remember PlayStation Home? Those avatars we made may have not had the star power of the Mii or even the Xbox equivalent, but there was just something about that ambitious 3D social gaming platform that felt ahead of its time, even if it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be.
And yet most of us didn’t notice when the service went offline in 2015. However, six years on, a small but dedicated fanbase is holding out hope that it could return to the PS5, as it has been discovered that Sony recently renewed the trademark “PlayStation Home”.
On the one hand, giving this social networking platform a facelift and next-gen rerelease could be a solid move given the ongoing lockdowns worldwide. But even as the world opens up again, PS Home could also have the name power to contend with VR Chat, which seemed to nail down what Sony was trying in a way that had more mass appeal.
Reddit user u/Thorites is convinced this is the case, posting a theory that this is the new title Sony’s London Studios is working on. Not only did this studio previously work on Home when it was up and running, it is also said to be working on a game with “huge potential”. In addition, on the trademark document, Sony list the uses of the trademark, including hosting online tournaments, cultural events, TV and film—all things that could be done in a new PS Home, and have proven popular in gaming recently, such as the concerts in Fortnite.
Equally however this could just be part of a standard procedure to protect the PlayStation brand, ensuring Sony own every aspect of it. This is simply to protect the company’s right to make anything under the PS brand, should it choose to, even if it has no immediate plans to use it. It is worth noting this is not the first time the trademark has been renewed, yet gone unused.
It would also be very un-Sony right now to revive old games such as PS Home, especially when the company had been making plans to get rid of the PS3, PS Vita and PSP storefronts, seemingly without contingency plans for the titles that will be permanently erased by this move. It did however go back on the plans somewhat after mounting public pressure, with the PS3 and Vita store now being supported for the foreseeable future. The PSP store will still retire June 2, 2021, as initially planned.
PlayStation Home launched in 2008 for PS3, but was shut down in 2015 as Sony slowly phased out the console.