Blur Beta Set to Open To All (Xbox 360) Users, And Why It Won't Come to the PS3

Because of the overwhelming demand for access to upcoming racer Blur's multiplayer beta, the folks at Bizarre Creations have decided to open the beta to all Xbox 360 users next week.

Speaking with Kotaku during our weekly Kotaku Talk Radio podcast, Bizarre Creations' lead designer Gareth Wilson said the developer ran out of beta keys much faster than anticipated. So the developer decided to transition the closed beta to a free download on Xbox Live Marketplace. The plan is to have the free beta download available by April 6.

"We basically ran out of code, so next week we are going to go live with the whole thing publically so anyone can download it," Wilson said. "We've been sneaking on to see what people think of it and people are really getting into it..."

The Blur Multiplayer Open Beta Demo will give you access to some of the game's multiplayer.

Wilson also explained why the studio decided to only do an Xbox 360 beta and not a Playstation 3 beta.

"Why didn't it come to the PS3? Really because when we were doing the beta it's hard enough to try and get a beta out that doesn't crash every five minutes while trying to finish a full game," Wilson said. "Trying to do that on multiple platforms at once, so trying to do a PS3, Xbox and PC beta release at the same time, it just isn't possible."

Wilson says that's because even though it is a beta, the release has to go through the same rigorous submission process of a game, which takes quite a bit of time and effort.

"It was enough of a distraction doing it for one platform," he said. "For our selfish needs, we only needed it on one platform because all we wanted to do was gather data about how people are using the cars, the power ups, the tracks, and to be honest we can get that data from one platform.

"We just chose Xbox really because it's the platform that, to be straight, has more online users than the PS3."

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