Sony has been hard at work to try and get Home released by the end of 2008, a target which the company has continually stressed that they are on track to meet even though the public at large has heard very few details about Home for some time. But the company wants us to know that things are going just fine, and Sony Worldwide Studio VP Jamie MacDonald wants to assure everyone that the matter of releasing Home is of the highest priority.

"At Tokyo Game Show it was announced that PlayStation Home will be hitting what we’re calling an open beta by the end of the year, which means it will be available to everybody," he said at the Game 3.0 conference in London.

"And the latest is, it’s going very well. The guys are madly working to make sure that date is hit, and it’s going very well," he added.

We reported yesterday that those purchasing the November issue of Qore would receive an invite to the Home closed beta, which should hopefully mark the last major milestone to pass before the service is ready for everyone to test out. Of course, Sony is avoiding the whole issue of "releasing" Home in 2008 by calling the product that comes out an "open beta," which means that all bugs and issues are just part of the development process and therefore should not indicate a faulty product. It’s worked swimmingly for Gmail, which has been in beta for years now, and everyone seems to love it in spite of its quirks.

As far as a release date for Home, MacDonald couldn’t give out any specifics, but we’re going to place our bets on Home being released to the masses on December 31, 2008 at 11:59pm.