Another PS3 title that seemed set to remain tantalisingly out of reach forever (see previous story) has just taken a step closer to hands-on reality, thanks to the opening of applications for the long-awaited Home beta test.

Has somebody been firing rockets up selected backsides over at Sony or what? Something must explain this micro flurry of activity lately. Either way, as the official US Playstation blog reports it, the Playstation Store is being updated with a special Home ‘theme’ today, the downloading of which counting as the user’s application to join in the Home-related fun n’ games. Or lack thereof, as the case may yet turn out to be.

Downloading the Home theme doesn’t automatically qualify users as beta testers, though. Heck no. Instead Sony will be applying a “variety of criteria” such as usage of the Playstation Network to sort out the loyalists from the clueless, grasping noobs. The decision to exclude non-hardcore gamers may yet come to haunt them, we reckon, seeing as fanboys are far more likely to spread the word if the virtual world/social networking hub-type thing actually sucks. But let’s just wait and see about that.

Meantime the US blog announces that Sony Europe is about to embark on a Home beta testing program of its own. Weird that we should find this out from the Americans rather than Sony Europe, but whatever. The same sort of selection criteria will be used too, with Sony directly targeting the biggest users of the Playstation Network and store. Indeed, “SCEE will be in email contact with their PSN audience very shortly”, we’re promised. Better get spending on the PSN store and watch your mailboxes, then...