Sony has announced that its PlayStation Home Beta service for PlayStation 3 will become available today. The company hopes that the PlayStation Home’s open beta service will continue to evolve with new features and functionality.
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SCE’s President and CEO, Kazuo Hirai said, “PlayStation Home is truly a promising network community service on the PlayStation platform, made possible with the powerful combination of PS3’s overwhelming computational power and PlayStation Network that covers many countries around the globe. We are committed to providing PS3 users with exciting gaming experiences with PlayStation Home and together with our partners and users, expand the new world of interactive entertainment as we move forward.”
The PlayStation Home is a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences. Within PlayStation Home, users can create and customize their own unique avatars and explore the virtual community in real time where they can communicate freely through text or voice chat. PlayStation Home users will not only be able to enjoy variety of entertainment content such as mini-games, videos and special events along with their friends, but will also be able to create their own community by using the “Club” feature to create clubs with other PlayStation Home users who share the same interests.
PlayStation Home also allows groups of users to launch directly into their favourite online games together from PlayStation Home.
For users accessing PlayStation Home in the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) regions, themed virtual environments will be available to explore. Starting with a themed Far Cry 2 space, PlayStation Home will offer game inspired environments that allow people to discuss the specific games, plan strategies and access content and clues that will enhance the gaming experience.
SCEE’s Home Service Manager, Daniel Hill said, “We are very excited to be bringing PlayStation Home to Europe and the PAL territories, offering users an interactive, social, gaming experience. PlayStation Home is unique to anything else in the gaming world and by partnering with both global and regional gaming and non-gaming brands, we are able to offer exciting and entertaining content that will enhance the PlayStation experience.”
SCEE today also announced the first partnerships with some of the world’s most respected lifestyle brands for the Open Beta. Fashion leader Diesel, contemporary furniture designers Ligne Roset, energy drink Red Bull, film studio Paramount Pictures and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer are the first on board. They will offer resident’s virtual clothing for their avatar, virtual furniture for their PlayStation Home apartments, exclusive video content and a virtual flying challenge: the Red Bull Air Race.
PlayStation Home is exclusive to PS3, free to download and easy to join. SCE will vigorously promote the expansion of the world of PS3 by introducing new services that will open up new possibilities and enjoyment in interactive entertainment.
See: www.sony.com.au
