The marmite (you either love it or hate it) of the Sony universe is nearing completion. Well, not completion per say, more like … general release. Yes, you know that I’m talking about Home, the virtual world, which is Sony’s biggest, and in some ways desperate, attempt to clutch the attention of the massive casual gamer audience. That is the very audience that once adorned the PlayStation 2 and still does in huge numbers, not bad for a last-gen system eh?

Home has been nearing completion for a year or two now so no-one would be shocked in thinking this announcement is nothing special. But it seems that it is pretty much official as the software is almost at the big 1.0 version number. 1.0 surely equals and ready-to-go product yes? … well no. It seems that although Home is very close to being update to version 1.0 it may be a little while longer before the general public get hold of it.

TedtheDog, Home Community Manager, has posted a message on the official European PlayStation forum giving some details leading up to the full release. Apparently the Beta testers get a preview of 1.0 will do, then they get 1.0, SCEE will then invite more Beta testers and finally, assuming the servers survive the previous testing influx, Sony will think about the date to release it to us.

So hopes marginally higher than before, but keeping in mind the fact that beta testing each stage is likely to take several weeks I’d estimate the pre-Christmas plan for the Home release is getting quite tight!