As of yet, Sony hasn't released an official launch date for PlayStation Home; all we know is that it should arrive some time "this fall." Earlier rumors that the open beta would come right along with the new closed Home beta update - 1.00 - proved false. But perhaps now we have a little clue...
Variety's Ben Fritz got a chance to sample Home with SCEA director Jack Buser, and evidently, he came away mostly impressed with the experience. However, as we know many of our readers are beta testers, we won't get into specifics (if you like, you can read the
entire article over at the Cut-Scene blog). But here's the interesting bit: when they wandered around Home, the code number to get into "personal space" apartments was "1024." ...we assume we don't have to spell this out for our intelligent readership, but we'll explain for the less savvy. We know the open Home beta is set for "fall," and "1024" can be 10/24, which is October 24. This coincides with some inside rumors we've heard in the past few months that say Home will launch some time in October, so it's certainly feasible. We're going to contact the SCEA Home team to see if we can get a clarification on this issue, and we don't want the standard, "we don't comment on rumor and speculation" reply. It's only a few weeks off; you guys can tell us whether or not the guess is accurate. C'mon, just a simple yes or no... Anyway, we'll try.
Along with the big-time exclusives like
LittleBigPlanet and
Resistance 2, PlayStation Home ought to be a major selling point for the PS3 this holiday season. And given the importance of online functionality for consoles in this generation, the sooner we go Home, the better.