All info in the main Press Release below.

PLAYSTATION®HOME BETA SERVICE WILL BECOME AVAILABLE TO ALL PLAYSTATION®3 USERS ON DECEMBER 11

10/12/2008 08:00

Highly Anticipated Service Open For All PLAYSTATION 3 Users

Tokyo, Foster City, London, December 10, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that its highly anticipated PlayStation®Home Beta service for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) will become available for all PS3 users around the world *1 on December 11, 2008. Following the successful completion of the closed beta service, PlayStation Home’s open beta service will continue to evolve with new features and functionality.

PlayStation Home is a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences. By leveraging the power of PS3, PlayStation Home delivers overwhelming visual graphics and rich gaming social experiences only possible on the PS3 platform. 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*2” 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.

PlayStation Home, available as a free download*3 starting December 11, will launch directly from the PlayStation Home icon on the PlayStation®Network column of XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) on PS3. Users will be able to experience basic features and services of PlayStation Home, free of charge*4. PlayStation Home will allow open interaction among users, business partners and SCE, and will evolve with additional features including dedicated game spaces, special events and exclusive themed items, to further enrich the entertainment experience on the PS3 platform.

“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,” said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, SCE. “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.”

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. The number of gaming environments such as this will regularly increase, with spaces for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune™, Warhawk™, Motorstorm and SOCOM following very soon. SCEE is working with leading publishers such as: Electronic Arts, UBISOFT, Midway, Sega and Atari to create engaging environments that will provide users with an on-going gaming experience.

“We are very excited to be bringing PlayStation Home to Europe and the PAL territories, offering users an interactive, social, gaming experience,” said Daniel Hill, Home Service Manager, SCEE. “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.

Visitors and residents will be able to explore PlayStation Home with their avatar character and, thanks to Diesel, avatars can look great from the start with Diesel offering the latest men’s and women’s designer avatar clothing, with items ranging from free of charge to €1.50. So for those visiting PlayStation Home, they can dress their avatars in the latest jeans and jacket prior to getting out and about.

On the home front, PlayStation®Home gives everyone their own apartment to spend time in and entertain friends - who will now be able relax on exclusive Ligne Roset furniture. At the virtual store, people will be able to choose from a selection of the most popular Ligne Roset designs, including the iconic Togo and Facett upholstery collections. It will be possible to personalise furniture by selecting from a wide selection of fabrics and leathers allowing a unique and individual look. This is an opportunity to get acquainted with Ligne Roset’s cutting edge designs created by some of Europe’s most talented designers.

As the very first consumer brand space, Red Bull has created the Red Bull Island where visitors to the Island can interact and take part in many of Red Bull’s unique events. Initially there will be the opportunity to get inside the cockpit of a Red Bull Air Race plane and compete against the PlayStation community. The real-world Red Bull Air Race World Championship has become a global phenomenon in just four years, attracting millions of spectators. Now those spectators can leave the stands, become a pilot and tackle the Red Bull Island course themselves. The Red Bull Island will continue to expand, adding new and exciting content in early 2009.

Taking full advantage of the PlayStation Home Theatre, SCEE has partnered with various content providers to enhance the cinematic experience. Offering a wide range of content, the PlayStation Home Theatre will provide lifestyle technology programming from Hexus TV, gaming content from Eurogamer and exclusive film content from Paramount Pictures. Starting with the release of the highly anticipated film, Watchmen, Paramount Pictures International will use PlayStation®Home to promote its latest films. Initially, PlayStation®Home residents will be able to view an exclusive video greeting from Watchmen Director Zack Snyder as well as the latest Watchmen trailer. A selection of virtual Watchmen merchandise e.g. T-Shirts with the smiley face logo, Doomsday clocks and character statues, will also be available in the New Year, ahead of an exclusive Q & A event where cast and filmmakers will meet selected press and competition winners fans within the Watchmen themed environment.

PlayStation Home is exclusive to PS3, free to download and easy to join. It’s the ultimate online community – a place where you can meet friends, try the latest games, hear new music, watch videos, relax in the apartment of your dreams and much, much more. With more and more spaces being created and partners like Diesel, Ligne Roset and Red Bull coming on board, the PlayStation Home experience is just getting started.

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.

*1 PlayStation Home will not be available in some regions.

*2 To be a “Clubhouse” owner, user will need to buy the entitlement to run the club.

*3 When the service is available, PlayStation Home icon will appear after booting/ re-booting the PS3 system. To enjoy PlayStation Home, users will need broadband network connection and PlayStation Network account in addition to the PS3 system.

*4 Some content and services are charged.

Red Bull as a brand is no stranger to gaming appearing in many games over the years from WipEout on the PlayStation 1 to Guitar Hero 3 and many many in between. So when the marketing guys at Red Bull heard Sony have a new system that will allow 3rd parties to create spaces and promote their products you can bet they were among the first to knock on Sony’s door and say we’ll have a piece of that thanks very much.

So what exactly is an energy drink going to bring to home? Well Red Bull sponsor more events then i can list, they run many of their own and have chosen to throw in the Red Bull Air Race as their gaming link. The Red Bull space will have a tropical island feeling to it and you’ll get to fly a plane in a game based on the Air Race. Many people have jumped to the conclusion that this will be homes very own Flight Simulator but it’s more likely to be a 2D game either side scrolling or like Pilot wings on the SNES running on a now familiar Arcade Cabinet. Newer games in home have featured rewards so at a guess (and remember this is a guess) you can possibly expect the following prizes to be included:

* Red Bull T-Shirt
* Red Bull Air Race Plane Statue
* Virtual Can of Red Bull (product placement at it’s best, people putting cans in their apartments and clubhouses)
* A pair of wings that can be worn by your avatar (Red Bull has been claiming for years that it gives you wings, so now faced with the possibility of actually being able to do this, will they go for it?)

Like i said, these are just guesses but they’re also pretty likely ones based on past prizes and red bulls promotional campaigns.

- - - UPDATE: - - -

There have been a number of hints dropped by sony suggesting this will be a full 3D flight sim mini game running on the home engine… i cant talk about some of these hints as they’re from private conversations, but i will share a quote from everyones favorite home community manager ;)

“Looking forward to seeing your reaction to this. Its really quite an eye opener to Home’s possibilities whilst at the same time being great fun.” - TedTheDog

This needs some background for those who are not part of the PlayStation Home BETA… Back during the Games Convention at Leipzig (23 & 24 August) home was on display and the RedFRO’s were in full attendance dancing the weekend away and welcoming the visitors at GC. The MEME was created the day before and I’m proud to say I was there from the start. The RedFRO’s are respected by Sony and were even mentioned during a recent press event by Sony Computer Entertainment America.

So what is a RedFRO? well to become a RedFRO you need to wear the Blue Home T-shirt with red trousers and either the red or white shoes as well as selecting the AFRO hairstyle and colouring it red. see screenshot below.

The RedFRO’s grew in numbers and since GC we’ve been generally having a laugh in the various places in home with a recent FRO reunion party last weekend in the UK home square MC’d by MvdM, i’d post pics of that but they show too much of home and i’d be in breach of the NDA. Also since GC we’ve had the FemFRO’s join us, similar get up but with white trousers as the girls in home don’t have red ones… When the ability to jump servers arrived we invaded America and japan and they now have their own versions BlueFRO in the states and PinkFRO in japan, but the UK RedFRO is the original and best and next time the states have a BlueFRO party we’re going over in force for a FROdown. It’s kinda hard to explain the RedFRO craze to those not in home but you’ll all get to experience it soon as there’s surly be a huge FRO Party on the day open beta is launched to welcome all the new people to home.

On the Private BETA forums over the last while I’ve been documenting my quest to create a real life RedFRO in time for Halloween and I’ve finally got it all sorted all that’s needed are a few tiny tweaks here and there… Click on the read more link below for details and pics of me all FRO’d up…

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