PlayStation Home beta comes to Europe

The first phase of the European beta for PlayStation Home kicked off yesterday evening, starting with "a small group of both internal staff and known beta testers."

Sometime during "summer," the online community will be made available to a wider group of testers. Those who are interested in signing up can register their interest on the company's Web site.

Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison first announced Home--billed as a community-based, three-dimensional sim for the PlayStation Network on the PlayStation 3 console--at this year's Game Developers Conference.

In the US, Sony confirmed that the beta would also run in two phases, with 15,000 users beta testing in April and 50,000 in August, although numbers have not been given for the European beta. Home is set for release in the US and Europe "around October or November time," according to SCEE's senior PR manager Jonathan Fargher.