PlayStation Home beta goes open at last

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 11 December 2008 01:32

Your IT - Entertainment

It's been a long time coming, but Sony is finally opening the beta version of the PlayStation Home social gaming community to the public. As long as you live in certain regions, that is.

PlayStation Home could be considered Sony's equivalent of Second Life for PS3 owners. Users are represented by avatars that move through a virtual space that includes apartments, stores and meeting areas.

PlayStation Home also provides mini-games, videos and "special events."

Sony originally announced a northern autumn 2007 launch, but that didn't happen. In April 2008, the company announced that the closed beta period had been extended and that the public would be invited to join the beta in the northern autumn.

Well, winter is here and so is the public beta. PlayStation Home will be available for download beginning December 11, 2008.

The software and basic use is free; some features are available at additional cost.

"PlayStation Home is truly a promising network community service on the PlayStation platform, made possible with the powerful combination of PS3's overwhelming computational power and PlayStation Network that covers many countries around the globe," said Kazuo Hirai, president and group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment.

"We are committed to providing PS3 users with exciting gaming experiences with PlayStation Home and together with our partners and users, expand the new world of interactive entertainment as we move forward."

Sony is being a bit vague about exactly where PlayStation Home is initially available, though the US, Japan, Asian and Europe and the PAL territories appear to be covered.

One feature that some users may find disappointing is that there is reportedly a series of Iron Curtains isolating users in different regions, ostensibly to avoid legal issues.

So what's inside PlayStation Home? See page 2.