A Realtime Look At Sony PlayStation Home in 2025 (PSHomeologyLab)(PS3)(RPCS3) - April 12th 2025

#pshome #2025 #demo

🏠 PlayStation Home was a virtual social space for the PlayStation 3, quit similar to SecondLife, launched in December 2008. It allowed users to create avatars, decorate virtual apartments, and interact with others in a shared online environment. The service aimed to be a "Second Life" for PlayStation fans, offering a mix of social interaction, mini-games, and customization options. In reality it served as a way to milk customers for their money buying all manner of virtual items and accessories.

The service officially ended on March 31, 2015, after Sony announced its closure in late 2014. It still has a dedicated fanbase. Opinions about the service seem to fall in two categories. Many loved its unique concept, the ability to meet new people, and the creative freedom it offered. Others criticized it for being overly reliant on microtransactions, lacking clear objectives, and feeling more like a glorified chatroom than a fully-fledged gaming experience.

It was a bold experiment that left a lasting impression on its loyal community, even inspiring efforts to preserve its legacy like PSHomeologyLab tries does. Many of these preservation attempts are invite only, closed beta or like this one are barren from others when you do log into them, like shown in this video. Still it gives a little insight in how it all looked. PlayStation Store functionality is not there - it is possible to browse the items that were on sale at some point. The video shows everything loading and downloading in real time. Decided not to narrate this barren landscape.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Booting the PSHomeologyLab variant of PSHome
00:01:33 - The Hub
00:04:06 - Using the teleporter
00:06:55 - Quests don't load
00:08:14 - Received some items, let's check those out
00:08:54 - Pier Park, looking around
00:12:58 - Entering the theater and checking out auditoriums and some movies
00:18:06 - Theater auditorium 4 weird gamer skit
00:20:54 - Pier Park riding the Ferris Wheel
00:21:45 - Game Ratched & Clank into the Nexsus doesn't load
00:24:46 - Browsing through evironments in the navigator and downloading some
00:29:58 - English community lounge
00:31:22 - Game Scribble Shooter doesn't load
00:31:57 - Bowling game in the lounge works
00:32:43 - A message that Adventure District downloaded , music and video
00:34:36 - Back to the Navigator browsing and downloading environments
00:34:40 - Tokyo Game Show 2011 Event Theatre
00:36:36 - The Tokyo Game Show video starts playing (copyright removed bits)
00:37:05 - IREM Gathering Space for Spelunkers
00:38:52 - Gintama Humanity Shopping Street
00:41:24 - Fields of Ge Kito
00:42:55 - Battlefield Teahouse
00:44:09 - Sparkle in the Void of Space
00:45:21 - IREM square
00:46:05 - Japanese School
00:47:17 - Acorn Meadows Park Spring
00:50:12 - Home Tycoon
00:52:15 - Fortune Hunter Uncharted
00:55:56 - Ooblag's Alien Casino
00:57:17 - UFC Octagon
01:00:32 - Journey Minigame
01:14:48 - Diamond Beach Yacht Club & Marina
01:15:34 - Diamond Mansion Infinity Pool - Open house
01:17:43 - RC Rally doesn't work
01:20:57 - WipEout Museum (including Confused Rave)
01:26:27 - DrWho TARDIS

-- and the rest of it all is quite boring without any interaction.

Thanks for watching - LactobacillusPrime

My Twitter: NOT - it's rather dead with it's fake ✔️ and rather toxic community
  / lactobacillusp  

My Facebook:
  / lactobacillusprimeretrogaming  

My Instagram:
  / lactobacillus_prime  

NOTICE:
"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."