The open beta for Sony's virtual world PlayStation Home is scheduled to launch in "the coming weeks", assuming everything goes to plan.
That's according to the project's community manager - or TedTheDog as he's known on the official PS forum - who has given PS3 owners a "rough overview" of the coming weeks.
SCEE will be inviting a large number of extra testers - who have already been chosen - into the closed beta before making it public, but there really, really shouldn't be too long to wait now unless there's some kind of major cock up.
"Finally," TedTheDog said, "Home open beta is the start of a long journey, not the end of one. I know I've said this a lot recently but I see many of you are thinking of Home open beta like a game release in that you're expecting the final version to be launched with just some patches and maybe some DLC to come afterwards.
"Home beta is a service that will grow from the foundation of v1.0 over the coming months and years so thinking of it as a start rather than a finish will help you understand where its going and what its all about. We all appreciate you've been waiting a long time to be a part of this journey and we hope you enjoy it once your onboard with us."
According to Sony's PlayStation Network director, even though it will be in beta, the Home trial will "be a fair representation of what the service can be and its potential".
I agree with the fact that this long overdue very long overdue but i cant wait to use home and all of its features and hey at least its free unline the allso long overdue gtav dlc.
I agree with the fact that this long overdue very long overdue but i cant wait to use home and all of its features and hey at least its free unline the allso long overdue gtav dlc.
You are away that we're only on GTA FOUR round these parts, yeah?
I'll be interested to see how Home is received by you PS3ers. I can't say it would interest me, but if you all come back and say it's amazing, I'm prepared to say my opinion may have been wrong.
I'll be interested to see how Home is received by you PS3ers. I can't say it would interest me, but if you all come back and say it's amazing, I'm prepared to say my opinion may have been wrong.
I'll be interested to see how Home is received by you PS3ers. I can't say it would interest me, but if you all come back and say it's amazing, I'm prepared to say my opinion may have been wrong.
It's amazing
Why do I get the feeling you're not being entirely sincere
Like I've said before, Home is about as appealing as a plate of cold vomit (and a very late plate at that). This and MS' avatars can naff right off as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's just because I'm the sort of person who was always going to hate The Sims, so this 'MyFace lite' community rubbish fills me with dread. Is there something I'm missing here?
Oh, and the bloke having digs about GTAIV DLC - better late than never? And if you're desperate for more GTA content on 360 at this time of year then you really haven't visited a game store in a while. For the first time in a long while there are more quality 360 games out than I can afford (both financially and time to play). I'll probably get the GTAIV DLC during 'the summer drought' 2009 - I for one had completely forgotten about it until just now!
I've been in the closed beta for months now, haven't logged in to home for almost as long as I've been in the beta.
It serves no useful purpose for the likes of me; why would I be chatting when I could be playing? And I have very little time available for playing as it is!
The minigames are dull, the video streaming is OK, but why bother when you can access youtube direct from the browser and watch pretty much anything rather than the 8 clips Sony have selected?
The pre-match Warhawk stuff looked alright, but I'm not big on FPS/shooters so it's unlikely to have a big impact on my gaming, maybe a Burnout one would help matchmaking?
I'm sure calns and the like will get use out of it but I fear it's a waste of money and time.
I agree with the fact that this long overdue very long overdue but i cant wait to use home and all of its features and hey at least its free unline the allso long overdue gtav dlc.
You are away that we're only on GTA FOUR round these parts, yeah?
I'll be interested to see how Home is received by you PS3ers. I can't say it would interest me, but if you all come back and say it's amazing, I'm prepared to say my opinion may have been wrong.
Ok gta4 whatever number point being yes its been a long enough wait but im sure all ps3 users and newbies alike are pumped yes?
I knew it would not be released the same day as the xbox 360, I have little big planet so sony could jump off a brigde for making us wait so long for home and then delay it once again.
Im really not interested in HOME anymore. All it seems to serve is to take gamers away from gaming and to bombard us with over-priced DLC and movies etc. Just look at the amount of useless and stupidly expensive DLC on the stores already (Ł4 for a sackboy t-shirt!!!)It is simply madness driven by a generation of militant fanboys If sony dont sort out their priorities in selling my PS3 and going back to PC gaming,simple as that
Sony has pushed the notion of Home for so long that people have become numb to all the Sony says they are going to do. The in the Electronic business there is very small window of opportunity of success. Yes, you do not want to release a product too early and have it riddled with bugs and glitches. You also do not want to release a product too late and loose a share in the market. Since Microsoft Windows 3.0 people have been used to bugs, and updates to fix problems. By the look of the sales of the PS3's it looks like Sony missed that window when releasing the console. With this seemingly eternal delay on releasing home, they are doing it again. With what I have read above, even the beta testers seem to have given up on the increase of community participation or even worse got bored of the program (the later would not be good sign for the life of this program). Sony has put a large investment in promoting and creating Home, and it seems that Home is going to be marked as Sony's largest failure (even if it does everything and more than what they are promoting). They are too late for the prom, their date is already making out with Bill Gates.
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