Sony Computer Entertainment has at last decided to take the training wheels off the PS3’s long-awaited PlayStation Home virtual world cum social gaming community cum Second Life rip-off – and slightly sooner than expected. Tomorrow, December 11th, the service will move beyond its invite-only closed beta stage and step up to full public beta. A free download will be made available (presumably within PlayStation Store) which will open up the service, placing a new Home icon on the XMB.
We’ve shared our doubts about PlayStation Home recently, mainly due to the sheer length of time it has taken to reach this open public stage. Remember also that this is still not the completed article we’re talking about, but yet another layer of testing before a proper finished version can be launched. We still don’t know when that’s going to happen.
However, positive reports coming in from those that were fortunate enough to be invited into the closed beta service are enough to restore some of the optimism that surrounded the Home concept, back when it was first unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in early 2007. Now that Microsoft has launched NXE and the fairly pointless avatars that came with it, we can see that having a dedicated space to explore with your online persona could be a very god thing.
Home offers you the ability to explore a variety of themed regions and virtual environments. Sony has promised that it is increasing the number and variety of these environments to include Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Warhawk, Motorstorm and SOCOM, with similar efforts from EA, Midway, Ubisoft, Sega and Atari expected in due course.
Customising your avatar and personal apartment space is a very important part of it too and Sony has just revealed that it has partnered up with fashion label Diesel and designer Ligne Roset to provide virtual clothing and furniture. Paramount Pictures, Hexus TV and Eurogamer will also be providing video content, while Red Bull will be hosting a virtual Air Race flying game.
But will it really be a place worth hanging around in for more than ten minutes? The only way to find out will be to poke your virtual head and see, and luckily it’s only a few hours before that’ll be possible. We will of course be bringing you our first impressions as soon as we’ve had the chance to check it out.
Out tomorrow| £Free | PlayStation
