Home public beta available on Japanese PlayStation Store
Although its appearance had been rumoured for quite some time, those rumours have now been made official as Sony have just updated the Japanese arm of the PlayStation Store with a link to download the beta of the long awaited, and much delayed Home. You’ll need a Japanese PSN account to get access to the Japan store, but as we always tell you that it very easy to create if you have a spare ten minutes.
If you have not been keeping up to date Home is a community-based service allowing users to create an avatar unique to their PlayStation 3 console, and then move them about in a virtual apartment space, which is also unique to them. Users can then place items in several different locations in their apartment, change wallpaper, put up photos on walls from images stored on their hard drive, look at videos and play music to give it the look and feel they want. They can also talk to other users via text or voice chat, and start multiplayer games from groups created within the service. It’s kind of Second Life to be honest although not as pointless.
Seeing as this is the Japanese Beta we are not sure what we can do with the download just yet. And seeing as it is 401MB in size, and still downloading on my PS3 as I type this I still dont know either. However, once the download is completed Home is supposed to appear under the PSN tab on the XMB. Hopefully there wont be any regional restrictions to stop US and Europeans giving the service a look, hopefully there wont be too much Japanese to navigate, and if we do get access hopefully the limitations of the beta will not be too severe and give us a good idea of what to expect from the service.
I’ll blog my with initial impression’s of the service soon, hopefully everything will be as impressive as Sony have lead us to believe over recent months.
13 comments ↓
Monkey Rimmer
April 1st, 2008
COOL! If there’s no Japanese lingo to try and read I might give it a shot at downloading!! Wonder if Sony will roll the beta out to the rest of world? It’d be nice if they treated us Europeans to something nice for once…..
Ben
April 1st, 2008
It looks a lot like Second Life but that was to be expected. I’m sure it’ll be a lot slicker and be easier to use.
Al
April 1st, 2008
UMMMMMMMMMMMMM………………………WHERE IS IT? this better not be an april fools joke
Al
April 1st, 2008
anyone know?
Monkey Rimmer
April 1st, 2008
Sorry Al, I’m stuck at work!
I rely on everyone else for my gaming news fix during the day….. roll on home time!
mike
April 1st, 2008
It’s not there. He’s lying. April fool!! etc. etc.
mike
April 1st, 2008
Seriously, under that What’s New section, there’s nothing for today at all.
The Top gear trailer’s worth a punt though!
Lloytron
April 1st, 2008
*thinks “I wonder who is running April fools jokes today?”*
*logs on to DZ*
*makes sarcastic comment*
sean-bryce
April 1st, 2008
i signed up for the JPN store just for this….. April Fools is already over here in Australia…. got suckered big time….
EvoAnubis
April 1st, 2008
401MB and you guys couldn’t figure out this is a joke? That was a hint and a half for your ass.
Mark
April 1st, 2008
401 MB you say? (401 –> 4 01 –> April 1….) nice
Tom
April 2nd, 2008
Very nice site guys
SOOPERGOOMAN187
April 2nd, 2008
i LET THIS CAT OUT OF THE PERVERBIAL BAG THIS WEEKEND. Made a guess about a home announcement today only to turn out to be be a joke. I Some joke, huh folks. What did I receive. Banned from the forums. Thanks, especially from someone who has never played an xbux in his life or Nintendo. Onl Playstation. From someone who still has the first anti shock discman that sill works. someone who still has a working Beta Max. Thanks guys. This has made the saddest ever. jokers ARE FINE AND ALL, BUT BECAUSE OF MY INTELLIGENT SNAFU, i now pay the ultimate price. well tomorrow I am going to call Sir Howard himself. That’s no Joke!