It seems like centuries ago when Sony first announced their virtual world experience Playstation Home, but in reality it was only back in 2007. Back then Sony had slated the release for the autumn of that year, but since we’re nearly at the end of 2008 and it still isn’t here we can safetly say that Sony’s original projections were easily over-optimistic. In the last few months a lucky few have been testing Home in the closed beta, but Sony is now saying that Home will be available to all in the open beta coming in the “next few weeks”. Well, if everything goes to plan it will be.

According to Home’s community manager - known as TedTheDog on the official PlayStation forums - Sony will be inviting a number of people into the closed beta pretty soon, before making it available to anyone with a PlayStation 3.

“Finally,” TedTheDog said, “Home open beta is the start of a long journey, not the end of one. I know I’ve said this a lot recently but I see many of you are thinking of Home open beta like a game release in that you’re expecting the final version to be launched with just some patches and maybe some DLC to come afterwards.” - CVG

I was beginning to think that Home would never see the light of day, so it’s nice to see that things are finally moving along. Hopefully the beta won’t last all that long and we’ll all be enjoying the full version by early next year, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Home open beta in “coming weeks” - CVG