The PlayStation Home Open Beta (77MB) can now be downloaded onto your PS3 from the XMB (it’s not a firmware update). Enjoy your second third life.
AU: If it works, that is. My copy doesn’t want to kick past the “Don’t turn off the system while we’re writing to the hard drive” message. How about you guys?
We knew it was on the way, but last we’d heard, PlayStation Home was coming December 17th. Wrong! PS Home will actually launch worldwide tomorrow.
Just the other day the Times of London told us they thought PlayStation Home would arrive by December 17th. Well, it looks like Sony has a similar theory.
PlayStation Home has long lost its lurid appeal, our relationship with it having transgressed from potential infatuation to being stood up at Applebee’s, sucking down some purple margarita that we’re beginning to suspect might be void of both alcohol and dignity. Regardless, PS Home director Jack Buster assures the world that the service will hit in 2008.
Want to get in on the closed beta for Sony’s once-upon-a-time hotly anticipated PlayStation Home? To throw your name into the hat, just download the PlayStation Home theme that’ll be added to the store later today. That’s it. Your level of activity is apparently one of the criteria they’ll be looking at–it’s implied the more hardcore you are, the better your chances, though they might wanna see how nubbie nubs like it too. [PlayStation Blog]
Sony is now recruiting beta testers for PlayStation Home, the virtual world that PS3 users will use to interact with each other–and try to have virtual sex. They will invite 10,000 users from today to August 11, with the beta starting later in the month. The beta will include only a limited number of places, including a Game Venue developed in collaboration with Namco, where you would be able to play Pac-Man, Galaga, and DigDug. All of them look very nice and polished, however:
newVideoPlayer("PlayTV_gawker.flv", 475, 376); While filming this walkthrough of Sony’s new DVR on the PS3 (with content streamed to the PSP), I mouthed to another writer, “This is hot shit!”
And I meant it. Especially regarding the part that looks like Apple’s Front Row. [Kotaku]
From Jason Chen, live at the PS Event: “They’ve gotten a version of PS Home working on a Sony Ericsson cellphone. It’s not 3D, but the communication and chat features working on the phone.” Can automatically send photos to PS Home’s 3D environment (say, as a picture on a wall of your virtual home.) They’re bragging about being able to launch your games on you PS3, using your in home handset. Which is dumb. You don’t need to use your cellphone to launch a game on your PS3. I get it now: this is a good way to launch multiplayer games. There’s more detail about the types of homes you can have for your avatars, as well as a video of the announcement:
