Ben-DutkaWe’re still not sure when the open beta for PlayStation Home will arrive, but Sony insists they’ll have it ready before the year is out. But it won’t be a cakewalk; president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Jamie MacDonald, says they’re “madly working” to get it ready.
According to Videogamer.com, MacDonald was speaking during the Gamer 3.0 conference yesterday morning in London, and he also said that thus far, development on Home is “going well.” They remain confident in their reconfirmed TGS 2008 announcement that the innovative online communication service would drop before the end of the year, which is good new for PlayStation 3 owners. Earlier, some rumors speculated that we might see the open beta launch with closed Home beta version 1.00, and/or with PS3 firmware update 2.50. However, these rumors have since been proven false, and all we have is the rumored November 19 date, which Sony refuses to comment on. Here’s more of what MacDonald had to say:
"The reason why we even started developing that (PS3 Home) was really a frustration a few years ago that the online experience for most games players was geeky, tedious and short. Certainly in my experience, I got into a first person shooter online and I lasted about 15 seconds. It's not much fun. So that was really our driving force with Home, to provide an environment where it's fun to go, you can hang out with like-minded people and talk about games, play games, have a look at the leaderboards, but in an environment that was game centred but not just for these teenage boys, who are fine, but they enjoy very much shooting people, which is fine."
The possibilities for something like Home are endless, but until we get a hands-on look at it, we’re just going to have to trust the feedback of closed beta testers. Thankfully, most all of that feedback has been positive, but we’re still anxiously anticipating the open beta release. We’ll keep you updated.
