Eric Lempel, Sony’s PlayStation Network director of operations, has said that Home is still on track. “The Home open beta is still on schedule for release later this fall”, he said in an interview.

He also attempted to put aside fears about the fact that the service will still be a beta when it opens to the public. “The reason we’ve been delaying [Home] is so that we can deliver a high quality service that the users will enjoy. Even though it will be in beta, it will be a fair representation of what the service can be and its potential, so it won’t be a 0.5 release, it will be a fully robust service”, he said.

Referring to an earlier comparison by fellow PSN director Susan Panico - that the roll out of Home will be similar to that of Gmail - Lempel said, “If you think about Gmail and Susan’s reference, Gmail, when it launched in beta, was a fully functional email service. I personally was using it and it offered everything you’d expect, but was in beta just to say that there’s more to come and maybe it’s not fully polished.”

SPOnG, for one, is glad to hear that Home hasn't come further a-cropper since Sony last delayed it. It's not the first time the service has been delayed, having originally been scheduled for release last Autumn.

^{Source: Next-Gen}