There was a time when the PlayStation Store was not digital, but physical: the Mecca for PlayStation fans
There was a time when the PlayStation Store was not digital, but physical: the Mecca for PlayStation fans
It was the summer of 1999, we were on the verge of a new millennium and PSX fans watched with greedy eyes as PS2 would take over from the success of PlayStation , first in Japan, and then in the rest of the world. But there was a place where this would be experienced in a special way. A place that has become, at the stroke of a checkbook, a Mecca for PlayStation fans .
There, launch events were held with celebrities, queuing to buy new consoles, and visiting with friends to try the latest news and take home a demo with which to continue dreaming about the game you would buy one day. Seen like this, it is understandable that the story about the PlayStation Store has a special aura.
Sony Metreon: the perfect shopping center
On the other side of the pond, very far from a Mail Center with the days numbered and the classic bazaars in which to look for the latest technology at a reduced price, Sony opened the Sony Metreon in San Francisco , an 85 million dollar shopping center .
One of those shopping and entertainment complexes out of the future with IMAX screens in its cinemas, virtual bowling alleys, playgrounds based on international franchises, and stores designed to get lost and spend the afternoon in them even if you had no intention of buying anything.
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An ode to the American passion for shopping malls that, in the long run, and with stories like this one, ended up infecting us too – long before these also became a symbol of decadence when capitalism left us. hands-.
“During high school my friend and I took the bus from Santa Cruz to there. We’d skate around town, stop at the PS Store to rest, play a handful of games for a bit, and then catch the bus home. They were magical times ”.
Between arcade machines of the future and a walk of fame like the one in Hollywood, but dedicated to video game characters, at the Sony Metreon you could also find the two main Sony stores: the Sony Style dedicated to all the products of the brand that with We ended up enjoying the weather in these parts as well, and the PlayStation Store that motivated this text.
The day the PlayStation Store was made of brick and glass: There was a time when the PlayStation Store was not digital, but physical: the Mecca for PlayStation fans
As chauvinistic as we like to be at times, envision being that boy’s high school friend we read earlier, arriving at the store after an “ Imagine being Tony Hawk ” session, and sitting at the huge bar counter full of consoles. and games with the latest news to spend the afternoon without spending a dollar.
It didn’t take long for the idea to permeate among American youth who, pushed by those photos from video game magazines in which Carmen Electra and Jason Biggs rubbed shoulders with giant mascots of your favorite video games at their launch party , flocked to the store as if it were one more tourist spot in San Francisco.
The most curious thing about Sony Metreon and the PlayStation Store itself is that its greatest asset was also a nail in its coffin. While PlayStation fans and hordes of young people flocked to hallucinate that mall of the future, their spending on Sony’s premises was notably less than the cost of maintaining it all.
In 2009, 10 years after that and having lived through the launch party for PS2, PSP, PS3 and great sagas like Tekken and Metal Gear Solid , or even having served as the setting for Jet Li’s Rise To Honor video game , Sony gave sheltered the project, closed its stores and sold the complex.
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The PlayStation Store stopped having a physical side, brick and stained glass, to focus on the digital, and the decision was followed by rivers of ink of teenagers remembering on Reddit how special that store was for them. I have no doubt that, had it been there at that time, it would have been for me as well. There was a time when the PlayStation Store was not digital, but physical: the Mecca for PlayStation fans
