Sony Computer Entertainment just sent over some new screenshots and details from PlayStation Home (PS3), revealing a virtual event space and the company's plans for it.

According to Sony, "the online Media & Events Space can be re-dressed and re-branded just like a real-life venue." It was apparently tested last week with a recreation of the PlayStation Day that took place on May 6, complete with streaming video speeches.

Citing the test's success, SCE noted that "Home will now start scheduling more elaborate and exciting productions for the Space, which will be available for use by both first and third parties."

SCE London's oft-delayed social networking software will be a free download for PlayStation 3 owners when it goes into open beta this fall.

The PlayStation 3's online social interaction software Home will not enter the open beta stage until this fall, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced. The free service had previously been delayed until this spring from its expected launch last fall.

In advance of this fall's open beta, the company will be expanding the breadth of the closed beta, which has been underway since last summer. Beta tester feedback is said to be playing a heavy role in the title's continual refinement.

"We have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today," explained SCE president and CEO Kazuo Hirai.

"Spending more time on the development and on the Closed Beta testing reaffirms our commitment to bringing a quality service, maintaining the PlayStation tradition."

Several new screenshots of SCE London Studios' Home (PS3) have appeared on the game's official Japanese website, illustrating the changes that have been made to the online social interaction utility since it was first announced and shown.

Slated to arrive as a free download for all PlayStation 3 owners later this spring, the game has been in closed beta testing since last summer. Beta tester feedback, which included demands for a more open environment, is said to have played a heavy role in the title's pre-pubescent transformation.

"They took out a home equity loan to pay for the new improvements, because it's called Home," joked Shacknews founder Steve Gibson. "I was just trying to think of any weird reference you can make to home improvements."

Despite the delay of the PlayStation 3 social networking service PlayStation Home to spring 2008, gamers will still get their chance to create their own virtual avatar and explore the online world before the year's end.

Speaking to GameSpot, SCE Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison explained the service was still set to enter a wide, and presumably open, beta test later this year.

"We will still be opening in late November/early December for general beta testing," he said. "So, the commercial start of Home will be pushed out later, but you will still get the experience this year."

An ever-expanding closed beta test of Home is currently underway for select members of the PlayStation Network.

During a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison outlined Sony's plans to extend the online and social capabilities of PlayStation 3. PlayStation Home, set to launch later in 2007, will offer PS3 users an interactive living space in which they can place furniture and decorations purchased or downloaded freely through the PlayStation Network via a virtual PSP device within the environment. You can see Home in action in this Playstation 3 Home video on FileShack.

Harrison introduced Home as a facet of what Sony calls "Game 3.0," which the company sees as the current era of connecting gaming. "This is not something we want to claim as a copyright," Harrison noted. "We want everyone to add to this." In that vein, the presentation slide illustrating Game 3.0 included photographs of not only the PS3 and Sony's own PSP, but also Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii, though the PlayStation Home initiative does not involve competing consoles.

Home will be a free download to PS3 and is launched from the system's Xross Media Bar. After some brief technical difficulties, Harrison demonstrated the service by creating a realistic human avatar to inhabit the Home environment. Character creation is similar to that of certain MMOs as well as Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, allowing players to specify a variety of facial characteristics and proportions. Like furniture, some character clothing is freely downloadably, while some will be paid premium downloads. Additionally, some items will be unlocked simply by playing particular PS3 games.

The Home environment showcased during the presentation was a fully furnished apartment with a variety of mini-game-like social features. Among other activities, players can go bowling, play arcade games, watch movie trailers or other video content on in-world TVs, invite other PS3 owners to bring their own avatars into the apartment. Interaction with other players is conducted via a predictive text fragment system, a virtual keyboard, or voice chat, along with a variety of expressive character animations. Other players visiting an apartment will have music and video being played on the apartment owner's virtual home theater streamed to their own PS3s, with proximity-based volume.

A separate room houses players' trophy collection. Much like Achievements on Xbox 360, trophies are granted for completing specific in-game goals. Developers will be able to craft actual 3D models for their games' trophies, and players can choose to highlight the most impressive trophies out in full view; the room is open for other players to admire.

PlayStation Home is currently in a closed beta test. A larger scale beta program will begin in April or May, with a full launch this fall.

Nick Breckon contributed to this story.