Sony's public Home beta is actually quite private

by Nick Doerr { Sep 13th 2007 at 10:00AM }

We knew there was supposed to be a public beta in addition to Sony's invite-only private beta for Home, but we thought it was going to be similar to an open beta, where most anyone could join in and report bugs. Not so. Sony's own Jamie MacDonald described the scenario as this: "At the moment the closed beta is employees, trusted third-parties and people like that. An open beta will be a wider audience but it won't be open to everybody ... We haven't worked out the exact way of doing it but it will be invites to people to ask if they want to be part of it, and then depending on what the response is, we'll have to have some way of deciding who can and who can't take part."

So the next stage of Home will still be invite-only, but it'll reach a wider audience. After that beta concludes, the program will simply pop up on our XMB's after what we assume will be a low-key firmware update. MacDonald implies this by saying Home isn't the typical game, so it won't get a typical launch. "There isn't going to be this 'big bang' launch. That's how you do it in the web 2.0 world, if you're familiar with the launch of Gmail or something like that." Initially scheduled for an October release, with a public beta not yet out, we're estimating that Home will get pushed back to November. We could be wrong, though.

Tags: home

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Byron517 @ Sep 13th 2007 10:11AM

Why do I have a feeling there's more to it then just keep'n it private... Sony has something up their sleeve!

kATANA @ Sep 13th 2007 10:14AM

Amazing, a Sony product with a delay......boring

final @ Sep 13th 2007 10:22AM

f u c k sony the time the first beta com out sony say treder wiil be a open beta for all

an now only privat beta f u c k you sony an give os all a open beta an some more games demo a more

TheSh0wstopper @ Sep 13th 2007 10:28AM

my brain is bleeding after reading (trying to read) that last post(#3).

TheSh0wstopper

Popfrogs @ Sep 13th 2007 10:30AM

#3. I think you wrote something there but my universal translator is broken.

Come on Sony, you said there'd be a Home beta, where is it after all this time? Is Home *that* unfinished? Our buddy Phil said it had been in the planning stages for over 3 years. I guess it's only been in the programming stages for 3 months.

gullum @ Sep 13th 2007 10:31AM

Seriously. WTF was #3 trying to say?

Anyway, it does seem a little lonely at Home right now. So I guess I'm a trusted 3rd party? It can't hurt that I'm a registered owner of every Sony console they have released.

Phoenix @ Sep 13th 2007 10:39AM

For those that are in the HOME beta it has just been updated and the new update is massive, a complete revamp of home.

http://www.console-exploits.com/forums/showthread.php?p=88660

Byron517 @ Sep 13th 2007 10:42AM

LMAO stopper your a fool dude LoL

But seriously I have a theory... Either Sony has something really special up their sleeve and they're keeping it SOOOOO under wraps that would rival AREA 51's secrecy or they need more time... One or the other but time will only tell... However... SONY YOU NEED TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!! Ok I'm done...

upz @ Sep 13th 2007 10:48AM

Good find, Phoenix. Looking better than ever. DivX eh?

Ste @ Sep 13th 2007 11:09AM

It's kinda ironic when a person calls someone a fool whilst typing "LMAO", "LoL" and "your" in place of "you're". :P All in one sentence.

I'm not really disappointed by this news. I don't normally take part in beta tests anyway.

wei @ Sep 13th 2007 11:09AM

october release not looking too good..

i'm getting pretty tired of sony underdelivering on every promise they've made with the ps3 so far.. i've owned mine for 4 months and i still haven't found a game worth purchasing.. :T

seriously, sony.. get your act together! this is embarassing!

Egster @ Sep 13th 2007 11:11AM

What the hell are you whining about wei. You will get this for free and it takes time to perfect a comprehensive online worls like this. How old are you, 12?

Frank @ Sep 13th 2007 11:15AM

Because complaining about a 600 dollar purchase is something only 12 years old do...

HAAS599 @ Sep 13th 2007 11:20AM

Thank you Egster.

Rome wasn't built in a day people.

Elliott @ Sep 13th 2007 11:25AM

Looks pretty neat. I had never heard of Home before I started reading this blog regularly about a month ago. It looks like it will be trying to combine Yahoo! Games, Invites to PS3 games, The Sims, and maybe YouTube all in one. Will we be able to show our personal videos in the theatre?

Thanks so much for the link Phoenix. A couple pictures is worth a 1,000 words in this case, because I couldn't really understand what Sony was trying to acheive with Home until I checked out those screen snags from the updated Beta. Can't wait!

AlanS17 @ Sep 13th 2007 11:58AM

Hopefully my brother can still get in to the open beta. He gets stuff from Sony on a semi-regular basis. It sounds like typical users won't stand a chance.

Young Capwn @ Sep 13th 2007 11:42AM

No place like HOME...

wei @ Sep 13th 2007 11:42AM

Yes, I am clearly 12 years old. Because I am frustrated that after saving up a dollar a week for my entire life, I was finally able to afford that PS3 I had my eyes on.

I'm not complaining about Home. I'm just frustrated with Sony's inability to deliver on anything they've promised for this platform. It amazes me how defensive people get about the PS3. We're closing in on a year after a release and the PS3 is nowhere near where the *other* platforms were/are at that point. Home is just another one of those things that everybody waited patiently for.. and it doesn't look like it's anywhere near release yet.

C'mon, don't tell me you think it's excusable that virtually everything that's has been or is going to be released on the PS3 has seen some kind of unexplained delay. It's just damned frustrating, as a consumer. Even as a 12 year old. Well played and classy, Egster.

wei @ Sep 13th 2007 11:46AM

sorry if this is double posted

Yes, I am clearly 12 years old. Because I am frustrated that after saving up a dollar a week for my entire life, I was finally able to afford that PS3 I had my eyes on.

I'm not complaining about Home. I'm just frustrated with Sony's inability to deliver on anything they've promised for this platform. It amazes me how defensive people get about the PS3. We're closing in on a year after a release and the PS3 is nowhere near where the *other* platforms were/are at that point. Home is just another one of those things that everybody waited patiently for.. and it doesn't look like it's anywhere near release yet.

C'mon, don't tell me you think it's excusable that virtually everything that's has been or is going to be released on the PS3 has seen some kind of unexplained delay. It's just damned frustrating, as a consumer. Even as a 12 year old. Well played and classy, Egster.

Popfrogs @ Sep 13th 2007 11:46AM

#15: Yeah, supposedly you can invite people into your Home apartment and watch movies and listen to music with them.

That DivX logo doesn't surprise me. I can't imagine that mpg2/mpg4 video in the Playstation's native format is going to stream well enough for people to share their PS3 video content. It's just too big for people with some wimpy 40KB/sec upstream on their dsl or cable modem.

It'll be interesting to see how Sony manages video sharing. Ideally it'd be just like the PS3 to PSP location free sharing...you have a VNC-type window into your content being broadcast over the PSN to your Home friends.

gumby @ Sep 13th 2007 11:54AM

So like gmail it will never leave beta.

Kevin @ Sep 16th 2007 6:28PM

@wel
How can you not find a game to buy?

Warhawk, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, FEAR even though it's not an exclusive it's still a good game, Resistance, Motorstorm, etc.

I bough the PS3 when I was 13, now I am 14, still games I wanna buy. And if you don't wanna play the M rated games, go buy a Blu-Ray Movie. I just got one at Costco for $19. March of the Penguins.

I can understand that you are frustrated, but I don't think you know how hard it is to make a game as good as Home.

Plus I think Sony is trying to make a big bang with all these good games that are coming out what 2 months from now.
If Sony drops the price to $399. Holy moley the PS3 sales are going to skyrocket.

mystical_304 @ Sep 13th 2007 12:32PM

If you got beef with the PS3's releases don't you think you should take that up with the DEVELOPERS MAKING THE GAME. It's not like Sony goes to each developer, be they the publisher or not and tells them to delay the game. Sony didn't tell Valve to delay the Orange, Sony didn't tell Midway to delay Stranglehold. Sony is releasing their games, Warhawk, Lair, and Heavenly Sword are all Sony published I believe. The titles that have been delayed is out of Sony's hands because they aren't the publisher.

ruibing @ Sep 13th 2007 1:09PM

@17 - Wow that was really well written and organized for a 12 year old.

Anyways, I'd much rather Sony spend an extra money making it better than for it to turn into a release that needs patching.

PJ @ Sep 13th 2007 1:37PM

Quite possible that the Divx logo was visible because the video was encoded with Divx? Not necessarily a future feature of the PS3... but it owuld be very usefull!

Cant wait for HOME. Not really bothered how long it takes to arrive. I'd rather be a part of something that works than something buggy and half arsed.

HAAS599 @ Sep 13th 2007 1:47PM

wei - I dont plan on dying anytime soon so I dont feel that SONY or anybody else needs to rush anything out. Is your life really that boring.

warlock7 @ Sep 13th 2007 2:27PM

@wei 17&18

No, you're not. You're complaining about something that hasn't happened yet.

What haven't they delivered? You're jumping to conclusions about something that you have very little information about. You sound like just another 360 fanboy trolling around the PS3 fanboy site to get some kicks.

Release dates get pushed back all of the time regardless of the system, this one hasn't been pushed back as it hasn't been officially announced. I've heard the rumored October 11th date too, but that's not official.

Also, most of the functionality of LIVE is already in PSN.

Deathalo @ Sep 14th 2007 3:24PM

Interesting, I'm in the Home Beta and have been since the first wave... I'm definitely not in the industry (yet), I'm just an ordinary guy, and G.A.P. member. PS3 Fanboy, you seem to not think that many avg joes got into the beta but I beg to differ, there are quite a good number.