I had a frank conversation with one of the designers on the PlayStation Home at this year’s E3 convention. During that chat, he mentioned that the beta would be expanding “very soon” with a smile on his face.

He also added that the expansion could be based on PSN activity, meaning that the more time you spend online with your PS3, the more likely you would get in to the next round of the beta. He of course then quickly added that this was just one of the many ideas being thrown around and could not confirm it as definite.

Today, the official PlayStation blog announced that the closed Home beta would be expanding, and those wanting in were being asked to sign into their PSN account and download a PlayStation Home theme.

Downloading the theme is the equivalent of submitting an application for the expansion lottery, but the blog revealed that there would be other deciding factors:

We will be using a variety of criteria including activity on the PLAYSTATION Network to determine eligibility for the Beta community. Existing beta testers have automatically qualified to be part of the expanded beta.

So it appears that the smiling Home designer was right. If you haven’t been showing your PlayStation much online love lately, now is the time to rubberband your controller, sign onto PSN, and leave that bugger online morning, noon, and night.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Tags: expansion, Home beta, online activity, PSN, SCE

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