Sony is officially shutting down the PlayStation 4‘s Communities feature in April after eight years of service. The next major update for the PS4 is set to come out soon, as the beta for the console’s 8.50 Update went live several weeks ago. The beta test gives a few users a chance to try out at least some of the changes the new firmware version will be introducing when it officially releases, which is expected to be sometime this spring.

The PS4 Communities feature gave the console’s users a way to easily communicate with each other and not only share their experiences, but also help each other out with the games they were playing, either by sharing tips and advice or using the feature to find people to play games with. Notably, Communities were absent from the PS5 when it launched last year; instead, the new console has other community-centered features, such as Game Base.

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Sony officially announced the shut down of the PS4 Communities feature in an email to PlayStation Network users as well as through the PlayStation support website. According to the announcement, the Communities feature will no longer be supported starting in April 2021 although users will still be able to communicate with each other through the PS4 and PlayStation App’s messaging functions, the latter of which rolled out its redesign last year.

While the announcement did not mention whether Sony was planning to release a new feature to replace Communities, that might still be in the cards in the future. The company may be planning to release a more robust version of Communities that may also release for the PS5 and the aforementioned PlayStation App. Sony could also just be eliminating the feature altogether due to the rise of similar apps such as Discord. Communities isn’t the first aspect of the PlayStation Network that’s set to be removed this year as Sony has also previously announced that the PlayStation Store will stop TV & Movie purchases and rentals in August.

It’s highly likely that Sony plans to replace the Communities feature given the number of users that still actively use it and removing it completely would certainly reduce the amount of community engagement the company has on the PlayStation 4. Whether it will be replaced with the same social features as the PS5 is unknown but is definitely a strong possibility as it will help synchronize the functions of both consoles and potentially link the communities of both platforms together.

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Source: Sony

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Martin Patino
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Martin has been writing for ScreenRant since the middle of 2020. He’s also written for several print and online publications across gaming, esports, and tech over the past 9 years. Some of these include PC World Philippines, Computerworld Philippines, 2.0 Magazine, Gadgets Magazine, GGNetwork.tv, PlayStation LifeStyle, GamingBolt, GameRevolution, UnGeek.ph, and more. Apart from video games and tech, Martin is a also massive anime and manga fan.

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