Martijn Van der Meulen, a Producer on Home talked with IGN’s Ryan Clements and shed some light on Home.
First off, he said 100% that Home will be coming this calendar year – not the fiscal year, which ends in March. And not only that, but Home will be free forever, so even when Home hits 25 million users or some other milestone, they will not start to charge you for this service.
With that out of the way, Van der Meulen walked me through the basics of Home and showed off the most recent build that’s running the extended private Beta. Everything looks extremely polished and well designed. We started off in an apartment space, where Van der Meulen explained that everyone will get a free Harbor studio apartment when they first get into Home and better apartments can be acquired down the line. However, it’s hard for me to imagine an apartment better than that one, as the highly pleasing aesthetics of the building, coupled with the incredibly gorgeous view, make me want that apartment in real life. One can dream.
There will also be possible tie-ins with other games like LittleBigPlanet or Resistance 2. For example, beating the game unlocks some kind of clothing or item of furniture. And you know, Media Molecule and the Home team are on the same street . . . hmm.
So Home is 100% coming out this year, but that could also mean December 31st or something, well hopefully it’s early December to help boost console sales, maybe in time for Thanksgiving?