A "PlayStation Home" screen. SCE's booth was reproduced in a virtual space at the Tokyo Game Show.
The 24 firms decided to join the PlayStation Home service.
An online service will become available for the PSP.
The release of the PS3 with an 80-Gbyte HDD in Japan was announced as well.
Twenty-four game software companies decided to join the "PlayStation Home" virtual space service for the "PlayStation 3" (PS3), Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCE) announced at a press presentation at Tokyo Game Show 2008 (Oct 9 to 12, 2008).
The company also announced a specific schedule for the online service for the "PlayStation Portable" (PSP) handheld game console.
SCE began the beta test of the PlayStation Home in Japan, North America and Europe in the summer of 2008, targeting a limited number of users (See related article).
"With the aim of making the service a new playground centering on videogames," SCE is planning to launch PlayStation Home as an open service within 2008, after conducting a large-scale beta test in late October to early November 2008, according to Ryoji Akagawa, senior producer at the Home Japan Project Promotion Unit in SCE's Network Business & Service Group. PlayStation Home will be provided as a beta service for the time being.
The company also announced that 24 game software companies including Capcom Co Ltd and Konami Corp decided to participate in the PlayStation Home service. Those companies are considering setting up lounges where users of a specific game title can gather or shops where users can purchase items usable in a game, for example, SCE said.
SCE also revealed that the "PlayStation Store for PSP" online service for the PSP will start Oct 15, 2008. This is the day before the new version PSP, "PSP-3000," is released in Japan. The service allows the PSP to directly download games and privileged images from the server. The company announced the concept of this service in September 2008 (See related article 2).
More than 250 titles including new, old and trial version titles will be initially available at the PlayStation Store for PSP. Some titles will also be released as downloadable versions at the online store on the same day when they are released on disc, according to SCE.
In addition, SCE said it will coincidentally start providing a PSP version of "Mainichi Issho," a free PS3 software title, when it starts the PlayStation Store for PSP.
The release of the PS3 with an 80-Gbyte HDD in Japan was officially announced as well.
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