Sony Computer Entertainment (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 on December 11, 2008.

Following the 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 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences. 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 beable 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" 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 starting December 11, will launch directly from the PlayStation Home icon on the PlayStation Network column of XMB (XrossMediaBar) on PS3. Sony said that the basic features and services of PlayStation Home will be free of charge although "some content and services are charged", according to the company's statement.

"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.
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 publishers such as: Electronic Arts, UBISOFT, Midway, Sega and Atari to create engaging environments.

SCEE also announced the first partnerships with 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.

Sega is a very popular company, having gained a lot of fans in the 1990s when it was one of the biggest developers and publishers of games for the consoles of the time, like the SNES or PlayStation 1. Although not a lot has been heard about the company these days, it still manages to release quite a few titles that are sure to have some very decent sales, like Football Manager.

Recently the Japanese company announced that it would be releasing a collection of 40 games that originally appeared on the Sega Genesis console. The pack, entitled Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, is slated for an early 2009 release and will contain very popular titles like Sonic 1, 2, and 3, the Streets of Rage series, Ecco the Dolphin or Space Harrier.

It will be released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, with a native resolution of 720p by using animations that are a bit more blurry, to mask the pixels that might ruin the whole gaming experience. The pack will also contain some of the popular titles from the 8-bit collection of 1980s Sega games."SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection is a must-have for any SEGA enthusiast," commented Gary Knight, European marketing director for SEGA Europe. "Fans will get a chance to relive fond memories from these classic games in HD format."

This is definitely great news for retro fans who have some very fond memories with a lot of these classic titles. These games had a massive fan base when they were launched back in the day, and now, a lot of people are sure to grab this collection, for the chance to relive those past experiences.

The decision to revamp some older titles isn't a new strategy in the game world, as Capcom will employ it with the classic Street Fighter franchise, with Street Fighter IV and the HD version of Super Street Fighter II Remix. It definitely looks like retro gaming is the new direction the big companies are heading in.