Regular visitors to SG will possibly be familiar with my rather well-voiced opinions on Sony’s dealings with European customers. If not, here’s a healthy reminder:

• Store is rubbish
• Interfacing with consumers is rubbish
• Features and services are rubbish

With the release of PlayStation Home things, unfortunately, are no different. Exactly how different they were took even me by surprise. My findings await after the jump.

Backstory time; get comfortable. In the old days of the Home beta, there were fields as far as the eye could s-sorry, there was a non-disclosure agreement hanging around, which meant I couldn’t tell you about anything that was going on. With that lifted, I can tell all about what happened behind the scenes.

Once every so often TedTheDog, the European Home Community Manager – or something as equally snazzy sounding – would pop in for a Q&A session, where we’d ask him all sorts of questions and receive all sorts of answers. You get the idea.

A good while back – we’re talking months here – my stirring memory recalls one Q&A session where one tester asked Ted about the distribution of the closed beta’s features. American beta testers had the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune theme area to try out, and a music player in their Central Plaza hub so they had some ambiance to enjoy while talking to friends. The Japanese testers could try out licensed arcade games from Namco and received a heap of t-shirts to go with the games. They also scooped some nifty Tokyo Game Show t-shirts when the real event took place.

And, um, the Europeans got nothing. Nada. Zilch to play with that the others didn’t have. Basically, when it came to cool new stuff to play with in Home, we got nothing unless we jumped continents and joined the American or Japanese servers.

When we asked Ted about this, I recall his reply being something along the lines of “different areas testing different content”. While I’d ask you not to quote me on this, the general idea I picked up was that individual areas would test individual playthings and then come open beta time – essentially “it’s finished and finalised, but we’re still adding new stuff”; think Gmail – everybody would get everything and that would be that.

Apparently not. Europe still has no musical gubbins or licensed arcade machines. Come to think of it, we don’t have anything new at all that I haven’t seen in the closed beta. It’s still the same Home Square, with the same Shopping Mall, the same Home Theatre and the same Bowling Alley. Nothing has been improved, changed, added or taken away.

Stateside, things are entirely different. My entirely pleasant sentiments await on page 2.

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