A new Home Beta site has been launched shortly after the announcement of the new virtual and interactive universe called ‘Home‘ from Sony at the annual Game Developers Conference last week in San Francisco.

The Home Beta site (www.homebetatrial.com) is a domain registered to ‘Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited’ in London, and was purchased less than two weeks ago. The site describes the new Home virtual world and urges viewers to check back in order to register for a chance to take part in the Beta Trial of Home.

“Home™ is a real-time 3D, networked community that serves as a meeting place for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) users from around the world, where they can interact, communicate, join online games, shop, share content and even build their own personal spaces. Home™ will be available as a free download from the PLAYSTATION®Store and will launch directly from the PS3™ system’s Home Menu.”, states the Home Beta site. “Keep checking back on this site to register an interest in taking part in an exclusive closed Beta Trial of Home™”

According to Sony the features of the new Home interactive world will rival that Xbox Live and Second Life. Highly customizable, personalized 3D avatars will be used to represent yourself in the Home world while you explore a modern indoor space with shops, game rooms and personal apartments that you can also customize and show off any images, videos and music on your PS3. The characters will also have emotional animations and communication with others will be available through chat, audio and even video.

In an interview with ThreeSpeach, a representative from Sony stated that Home will have a better environment than the already popular Second Life, “Home is a much more rich, user friendly experience than Second Life, allowing for ease of entry and use, as well as being fully-functional with the technology and capabilities of PS3.”