Official PlayStation forums used to be the home for some of the most hardcore gaming enthusiasts. Looks like the home has crumbled as Sony Interactive Entertainment is shutting down all official PlayStation forums.
In a heartfelt and emotional statement, Community Manager Groovy_Mathew announced the impending closure of the forums. This is what he had to say:
Beginning 27th February, the PlayStation.com forums will no longer be available.
He continued:
We invite you to continue the conversation via PlayStation.Blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For product support, please visit the support site, Playstation.com/help/.
Fans said their farewells on the announcement thread and also shared fond memories about the official forums. But, these forums had become no man’s land a while ago. Gone are the days when the official forum was the only place where gamers could nerd out about new games and hardware. Forum members shared a bond and met people who had similar tastes in video games and media in general.
With the rise of various social media platforms, official forums slowly became redundant. It was more beneficial to highlight social media trends in marketing meetings rather than some random forum posts. Taking the conversation to these new and more popular platforms seems like a wise decision from Sony.
On the other hand, shutting down official forums right at the heels of the PlayStation 5 launch event seems disadvantageous.
The most ardent fans only had this place to geek out about the release of the next-gen console. You would think that having multiple platforms for PlayStation fans to spread the hype would be favorable. It looks like Sony does not think that way.
Although to be fair, the forums had been dead for a while now. Even the fans stated that they rarely or never logged on to the forums these days. The official PlayStation forums will still be remembered for the glory days of the PlayStation 2.
We recently found out that the PlayStation 5 production schedule was not affected by the coronavirus. Which means that we should be getting a reveal event soon enough from Sony. Other than some design leaks, we don’t know much about what the PlayStation 5 will look like. The console is expected to release in the holiday season of 2020.
