"I don't have any more specifics right now, but like Kaz [Hirai] said, it will go live [in the US] this summer and I think it will offer consumers everything they're looking for from us. It will offer everything they expect from us and probably a little bit more."

""

"We hope to be getting involved in an early beta version of the virtual world soon. We'll let you know when it happens."

"The Home Beta was recently updated to version 0.8.6. The update contained a Media and Events Space that was only available for a limited time.

Though nothing other than several stylish rooms were available to beta testers the day the area was open, we've heard that upon the launch of Home, Sony will use the space to showcase events such as PlayStation Day and host live presentations.

According to Scrawl, a survey coincided with the reveal of the Media and Events Space that inquired ab..."

"Sony was being too ambitious with the non-gaming applications of Home and delayed the project to focus on gaming, SCEE president David Reeves has told CVG.

In a brief interview at the recent PlayStation Day event in London, Reeves admitted that Sony wants to make sure the gaming parts of the service, like trophies and Home-to-game launching, are ready before it goes public.

"It is definitely coming out in autumn," assured Reeves. "Whether that's October or November, I don't precisely kn..."

"The Soon To Come, Home Experience!
Home has been on many if not most of the Playstation Nations minds at one point in time but we are still months from the full release. However, the guys at Sony have been allowing lucky members to try there new Sims like simulation of there free application in the beta of Home.

Now I was one of the lucky few that have it and lets just say, it has evolved so much from when I got it (July 7th of last year). So many changes yet so much content being squeeze..."

"Guess what? Looks like the Open Beta of Sony's long-awaited PlayStation Home is arriving in late 2008. The official announcement just came in over press wire, where Sony Computer Entertainment claimed that the ongoing Closed Beta test was to be "expanded" by an undisclosed number of users. They say that upon the completion of this expanded Closed Beta, the Open Beta will start. The online testing experience begins fall of 2008.

Why so long? According to Sony's top brass, Kazuo Hirai, the e..."

"Earlier this week we managed to get access to PlayStation Home by "hacking" a few files on the Sony server. Our video shows that we managed to download Home from the Sony servers, but we weren't able to access the online world. We have taken a few screenshots of the icon on our PS3 and the version information for the download (see below). Since the discovery of the hack, Sony have disabled access to the download."

"When PlayStation Home finally goes live, a new icon will automatically appear under the [Network] category, without the need to update your firmware. Upon booting your PS3, the console does a simple check on two XML files to see if the service is active in your country. If it is active, the new icon appears and click on it will download the Home package to your PS3. After a bit of "hacking" using PS3 Proxy Server, we managed to get the icon showing on our console and even downloaded the Home ..."

The newest Playstation Magazine is out, and PlayStation.com Forums member patches 4 socom 3 has been kind enough to provide people with pictures of various pages of the magazine and even points out a passage where a Sony employee announces that they will be opening up the PlayStation Home beta to the public "very soon."

How soon is very soon? It could be as soon as the first update after the PS Store returns. However, "soon" is a relative term, though Sony has stated before that Home wou...

In a recent interview with Sony's creative director, Ron Fejesto, he has confirmed that Playstation Home is to be released sometime next week. Sony were planning on releasing it during Easter but since it came early this year, Sony couldn't release it in time. So now that the holidays are nearly here, Sony will be releasing Home just as scheduled for an April release next week.

Suprisingly enough RevolutionTT (a private gamers site) was capable of getting an interview with Home's creative...

"Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi has said we should expect vehicle deformation in his games "very, very soon".

"We really, really want to put damage onto our vehicles," he told GamerTV (as spotted by VG247). "We've had a lot of discussions with the manufacturers and, although at the beginning they hated the idea of deformation, now they're slowly coming around to it.

"We've still got a few to convince, but we will. Expect deformation in the very near future: very, very soon," he a..."

"Ubisoft still not sure on release date for anticipated Free Radical FPS.

We all got a little excited yesterday when Ubisoft's latest release schedule reported that Haze will be hitting stores on May 22. Given that the PlayStation 3 exclusive FPS had seen numerous delays, a firm release date was music to the ears of many PS3 gamers.

Today things aren't so rosy though. According to an amended Ubisoft release schedule issued today, Haze still doesn't have a firm release date, with May 200..."

"According to sources, Sony has something big ready to be revealed at E3 this year in regards to the Sony PS3."

"The creative director and lead artist of Home want to push user-generated content as a feature, but recognise that moderation and the quality bar are big issues.
"From day one we're going to give [users] basic customisation, analogous with other games," John Venables told GamesIndustry.biz.
"But we will hopefully be increasing the tools that we give to users over time, to give them more control, maybe to ultimately provide their own content."
"Obviously the Holy Grail is to give people the..."

"The first video is an introduction showing off a few new places in Home as well as the In-Home game Chess. The first place the player visits is a clothing store called "Threads" where players can purchase clothing items for their character. While the current clothes in the store are free, having a "checkout" and "confirm transaction" screen makes us believe some clothes will eventually cost money.

Moving on to part 2. The next video shows Home's use of the in-game PSP. Using the functiona..."

"While Home for the PlayStation 3 may have generated plenty of buzz for Sony at last year's Game Developers Conference, its late arrival and the setting in of reality may have made it put a damper on the hype surrounding the service. We've had our doubts that Home may ultimately be nothing more than a prettier Second Life, a glorified 3D chat room, one that only makes getting to the games we actually want to play a bit of a chore. But we've recently learned some very interesting things about h..."

It seems that news regarding Playstation Home are ripe, which could only mean that it's nearing release.

Well today we've gotten more information thanks to ps3fanboy who've been told via an email that the Home Beta will be upgraded next week to v0.8.3 only a couple more points away from v1 where it'll be released to the world.

Whilst this is really for the beta testers out there, here's a list of things you're likely to fine in the final version of the game.

• Check whose online from yo...

"Washington (dbTechno) - The highly-anticipated Home for the Sony PS3 is apparently getting very close to release, as reports are also coming out that the in-game XMB for the PS3 is complete, which will allow for in-game and cross-game chatting, as well as the ability to pull up music and messages whenever you desire.

According to the Official PlayStation Forums, the PSedge dev kit has received an update.

The poster stated that there have been many new updates including new things added ..."

Could a link between Playstation Home and Devil May Cry have been found? Well ps3fanboy certainly think so. Whilst playing the game for a while, they've managed to unlock various Achievements on the Playstation 3 version of the game, and after unlocking these achievements the messages that appear aren't one that's internally (in the game) but one that's similar to the "Network Connection Screen".

Could this eventually be turned into "Trophies" for PS Home when it's released? Or could it s...

"Sony has put online the official Homepage of Playstation Home on their Japanese site, and we of course extract all the images we could find there for you convenience. Looks like it's shaping up nicely."

"Wired's annual Vaporware Awards went up yesterday, and because this is the Internet quite a few of the slots went to videogames. But we're not nearly done yet.

We have some slightly different rules for this list. The game in question didn't have to ever have an official 2007 release date attached to it, just as long as the hype coming from the publisher vastly outweighed the substance."

"Changelog:
* There's a new building in the world, although it's currently one that can't be entered
* You are finally able to enter your Home Space's patio
* You can now use your own pictures in your Home Space
* A game launching option has been added, though it is not functioning completely at the present time
* The cinema's movie theatres have transferred from the second floor to the first floor
* America, Japan, and Europe each have their own server now"

"This is all just speculation so it is still classified as a rumor. There has been no official word from Sony, however, Phil Harrison once stated that the HOME beta will be released late November, early December and the 29th is late November, early December. This theory does seem to have a valid basis, but lets see what happens in coming weeks when the PS Store is updated."

""

"NCsoft's director of product development believes Home's fortunes are dependent on PlayStation 3's installed base, and not the other way around."

"Talking about Home, the executive said as far as he was concerned, the release delay meant nothing had changed. He said, "We will still be opening in late November/early December for general beta testing. So, the commercial start of Home will be pushed out later, but you will still get the experience this year.""

"• What not having Home this year would mean for Sony. And Paul's opinion of them.
• Nintendo's SMS sweepstakes supporting Phantom Hourglass
• The Microsoft Chatpad: People over 30 need not apply?
• 1Up interview of Konami's Igarashi: He's coming around to the idea of a Wii Castlevania.
• Stephen suggests a design for Wii Castlevania, gives kudos to the PS2's Castlevania games.
• Wii VC in Europe gets Super Mario 2 for a limited time. Then what happens?
• Guitar Hero 3 coming to the PC a..."

"This last point is both encouraging and disappointing. It is good to see that Sony will continue to improve the quality of their product (which they are distributing for free after all). While the XMB has substantially improved since its first release – and continues to do so –, we would expect that this launch does not suffer from too many missing or incomplete features just so the product can be pushed out the door before Christmas.

As for Home replacing the XMB: Aside from whether this ..."

""

"MMO addicts; it's time cut up your Ethernet cables (and turn off you Wi-Fi, you dirty blighters), because PlayStation Home is well and truly on the way - and it looks like Sony's trying to stick it on PSP as well.

In an interview with MTV John Koller, marketing boss at SCEA, confirms that the company has plans to sync PS3's virtual online world with the PSP, although it hasn't come up with anything concrete yet.

"Intuitively, if you take the PSP with you, you would want to take some of ..."

"With Brighton positively swimming under a bobbing sea of developers for this years Develop conference in the UK, it's hard to keep track of all the information morsals whizzing around. For instance, during a workshop hosted by Sony's Home development team yesterday, a couple of new screens snuck out, alongside news of some minor changes to the software."

"Marketing Week reports that Sony Computer Entertainment, "...is on the hunt for partners to help further develop its PS3 Home concept and is considering using the virtual world to sell non-Sony products."

Apparently, the company preparing to call on third-parties to provide physical goods that can be sold using Home's e-tail capabilities, which at the moment are geared towards providing items such as virtual clothing to be used by online avatars.

The report concludes by explaining how a..."

"With Sony's press conference in the past, we've created a roundup of all the small, but significant, announcements and confirmations. This year, Sony allowed very little time for the audience to ponder and absorb, so a lot of the groundbreaking revelations were not emphasised. This was of course a good thing, as it showed that Sony had a lot of things to say. So aside from the major announcements, such as MGS4, Haze and UT3 exclusivity, here are the other tidbits:

- 200 games on Blu-ray an..."

"Beyond Solid Snake’s latest adventure, GamerSquad’s Vol. 06 of its E3 Trailer Park Blowout brings you the likes of Pain, Home, Little Big Planet, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Infamous, and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue… all of which are strapped firmly to the PlayStation 3.

Then, if that weren’t enough, there’s more cross-platform goodness in the shape of Silent Hill 5, Haze, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, DarkSiders, and The Simpsons Game."

"As part of Sony's E3 2007 conference, the company announced at last that HOME will allow users to boot into any game on your PlayStation 3 (on disc or on HDD) and play multiplayer games with others. HOME is Sony's online virtual world, where users create a 3D avatar and interact with other Sony gamers to chat, trade media, and play games.

In demonstration, it was not clear if the users that you meet in your realm of HOME are also the gamers you will end up playing with, but the demo did sh..."

"With invitations already sent out for the North American closed beta, the first shaky-cam shots of PlayStation Home are starting to leak out of the woodwork - and here they are.

This first batch, which emerged on the internet this morning, shows quite a bit of the PS3 'Second Life-like' service in action including interacting with your virtual PSP and those damned in-game adverts.

There's also a shot of Home's multiplayer bowling in action, which we're almost certain we won't be able to..."