Sony Talks PS3 Home, Coming By Year-End But Still In BETA
Jack Buser, the director of PlayStation Home, recently sat down with IGN to discuss Home. He talks about why we should care about it, what experience it will give us, and what is it with all these delays.
He explains that Home is going to be a place to meet friends online, to find gamers of the same skill level and into the same games as you. It’s going to replace the arcade as the place to make new friends and share your hobby with them. All in all, Sony is excited about Home, and so, apparently should you be.
Great, so where is it and when can we, the great unwashed who haven’t been invited to try the closed beta be able to experience the joys of Home? Buser claims the service is now entering the final stages of closed beta, with the open beta very close to launch. And he goes one further by stating:
"Like we’ve said, we’re excited about moving PlayStation Home into its Open Beta stage this year. Once we make the move to Open Beta, everyone will have access to PlayStation Home."
That’s right folks, just five weeks before the end of the year is upon us, and the man in charge of Home has categorically stated that everyone will have access to Home before the start of 2009. But even though we’re all be invited, Home will still be in beta?!?
I can understand the delays, although I’m not happy with them. Home is, after all, something new and as yet untried in the gaming community. But it can’t be good that the beat looks set to continue for well, forever by the looks of it. Could it be that Home is set to be like so many other Internet services and remain in beta forever, constantly being tinkered with?
I’m actually looking forward to PlayStation Home immensely, having lost my early pessimism over how good it could or would be. But to say everybody’s becoming a little bit impatient is the understatement of the year. Just release it already and let us see why it has taken so long to develop.
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