The Time Sony Built a Mall
The Failure of Sony’s Metreon
In 1999, Sony once again tried to build the future. Not in the shape of a new video format or a personal audio device but something completely different. And for a moment, it looked like they had.
Spanning 350,000 square feet in downtown San Francisco, the Sony Metreon was a glass and steel playground filled with PlayStation demo zones, IMAX theaters, themed attractions, and a vision of retail that was at the time the most expensive urban entertainment center ever built in America. And it opened just as the dotcom bubble was at its peak.
Sony called it the mall of the future. The press compared it to a cruise ship docked in the city. Critics saw it as part arcade, part museum, part brand temple. But by 2006, it was gone. Sony sold it off at a loss. The attractions shuttered. The dream scaled back to something far more ordinary. And what was supposed to be a global chain never got past San Francisco.
This is the story of the Sony Metreon. A time capsule of late 90s tech optimism, creative ambition, and the moment Sony thought it could reinvent what it meant to visit a store.
The idea came from Sony Development, a real estate subsidiary tasked with building physical spaces that could express Sony’s brand. The company had movie studios, record labels, game consoles, and a growing presence in the digital lifestyle. So why not build a place where it could all come together?
Metreon was designed as that place. It sat in the heart of San Francisco. Sony projected 6 million annual visitors. They called it an “urban entertainment destination.” The name combined "metropolis" and "eon." Everything about it pointed to the future.
It opened on June 16, 1999, with fanfare. AIBO robot dogs wandered the floor. The city’s mayor predicted millions in new revenue. Inside, visitors found a retail landscape unlike anything they’d seen before. Sony cameras to try, PlayStations to demo, 3D animations, glass walkways, and giant sculptures filled the space, with few actual stores.
At its peak, the Metreon felt alive. The PlayStation store was its crown jewel a glass and neon hangout filled with demo pods, accessories, and a long bar where uniformed “Gametenders” handed out discs. Kids spent hours there, hopping from one station to the next, working their way through the PS1 library.
Sony hosted launch events for the PS2 and PSP at the Metreon. Fans lined up overnight. Some camped out for days. The space was flexible enough to hold concerts, screenings, and tournaments. In 2006, it was the West Coast’s flagship launch site for the PS3.
Beyond games, there was a bar arcade hybrid called a bar-style arcade upstairs inspired by Moebius. It featured a futuristic bowling-style game, where players rolled an air supported ball like a bowling trackball to steer through virtual worlds. The theater complex was massive: 15 screens, including a full IMAX. The whole place was strange and ambitious. It didn’t feel like a mall. It felt like an experiment. A very expensive, very Sony experiment.
But it didn’t last.
The first cracks appeared quickly. Visitor numbers missed projections. Many came to look, not to buy. Some exhibits proved unpopular or too expensive to maintain. By the early 2000s, the dotcom bubble had burst. Tourism dipped and local tech workers disappeared. And the futuristic concept that once felt magnetic suddenly felt out of sync.
Worse, the most successful part of the Metreon, the movie theaters, did not pay rent to Sony. They were independently operated. Even as the IMAX raked in money, the mall itself was losing it. Retail tenants struggled to justify the rent, and Sony, already facing challenges across its core business, began scaling back support.
By 2006, Sony sold the building. The buyer, announced a redesign. Sony retained its PlayStation and Sony Style stores for a few more years, but by 2009 they too were gone. The Metreon had officially become just another shopping center.
In 2012, it reopened with a new anchor tenant: Target. The high concept exhibits were replaced with practical retail. Today, the Metreon is a food court, a bookstore, a multiplex, and a downtown Target store. A functioning urban mall, but one that bears almost no resemblance to its original form.
Still, people remember it.
For Bay Area locals, the Metreon remains a piece of childhood. For Sony fans, it was a rare physical manifestation of the brand’s entire identity. For a few brief years, Sony had a space where Walkmans, camcorders, consoles, and robots all lived under one roof. The Metreon was messy, flawed, and overpriced. But it was also imaginative, experimental, and playful.
It was Sony at its most ambitious. And maybe, in hindsight, Sony at its most human. It was a dream that didn’t fully take off, but for those who experienced it, it left a lasting mark.