Sony will finally set PlayMemories out to pasture this month. The company stopped new uploads to the service last September but on February 29 — nearly 12 years after it launched — Sony will terminate the service entirely.
PlayMemories is a cloud-based photo and video sharing application developed by Sony and released in 2012 with support across the company’s cameras, televisions, digital photo frames, gaming consoles, and more. The concept behind PlayMemories would see all of Sony’s hardware devices synced to one cloud-based platform via a series of apps and provide access to files across them. Sony even built in a new photo editing suite that would take photos uploaded from a camera and allow them to be edited on a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, although the latter app had previously been discontinued. PlayMemories Studio was also available on PlayStation Portable (PSP) and PlayStation Vita.
Full functionality of PlayMemories with a Sony camera required using Imaging Edge, a platform that was replaced with Creators’ Cloud last year.
Sony advertised PlayMemories as supporting unlimited uploads of photos that would be saved to the cloud automatically. Despite moving on from PlayMemories years ago, Sony continued to support the platform across devices, even going so far as to continue the availability of the iOS app until 2022. Even then, it didn’t remove support for the app on iPhones but simply stopped new downloads, assuring users who still wanted access to PlayMemories could retain it.
All things do eventually end, however. Last February, Sony announced that it would no longer allow new sign ups for PlayMemories and set a timetable for the app’s termination: one year later on February 29. In September, the company took matters a step further and announced that on October 1, it would no longer allow new images to be uploaded to the platform and ceased support for all applications except for web browsers, which included Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, Bravia televisions, and the PlayMemories Home app.
The company has spent the last year preparing users for closure of the service and has urged them to download all files before February 29, 2024.
“We announce that the “PlayMemories Online” service will be terminated on 29 February 2024. Thank you for using this service for a long time. Prior to the end of service, only web browser browsing and download tools will be available after October 1, 2023. Therefore, we would like to ask you to download the contents you have stored in the service,” Sony writes.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding and cooperation.”
Sony has provided users with a support tool that they can use to download files from PlayMemories. The company also encourages users who want to maintain cloud access to files to switch over to the Creators’ Cloud.
