Sony shutting down Afrika’s Japan servers in August

After a stellar first showing in 2006 and many delays thereafter, Afrika finally arrived in North America in the Fall of 2009. It was met with mixed reviews with most critics giving it below average, to average scores. Now two years later after its Japanese release, Sony has decided it’s time to bid Afrika’s online community goodbye.

Afrika doesn’t really have a multiplayer component per se, but you can upload some of your favorite photographs online. As of August 31, 2010 Afrika will be an offline game only in Japan. Afrika is one of a few games to have its online function stripped this year. Eat.Sleep.Play.’s car combat game Calling All Cars had its servers shut down earlier this year. Sony also announced it would be disconnecting servers to the Eye of Judgment on September 30, 2010.

I was disappointed by the reaction Afrika received. When it was first shown at E3 2006, the PS3 was still trying to acquire a larger following by flaunting its superior graphics. Afrika was stalled by problems in the West including deciding on a publisher and confusion with its final name. At one time, National Geographic was supposed to publish Afrika. Afrika was also supposed to be renamed Hakuna Matata. All this formed a perfect storm of delays that caused Afrika’s graphical sheen to wear off.

Take those photographs while you can. Or just don’t worry about it. They’ll all be lost in the abyss soon enough.

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