Over the past couple of weeks, thousands of you have watched The Tester trailer on PlayStation Network or online, and I know from the overwhelming feedback we’ve received that many of you are looking forward to the premiere of The Tester as much as I am. Well, the wait is finally over – The Tester premieres on PlayStation Network today!
From the beginning, PlayStation has been a pioneer in gaming and entertainment. This pioneering attitude can be seen in everything we do on PlayStation Network – from delivering genre-shattering exclusive games such as Flower, flOw, Fat Princess and the PixelJunk franchise, to launching the revolutionary 3D social gaming platform PlayStation Home, to becoming the first entertainment network on a console to offer a premiere video delivery service or digital comics. So, when we decided to push the envelope even further and produce the first original reality series on PlayStation Network, we knew the bar was set pretty high.
I can proudly say that The Tester doesn’t disappoint. We teamed up the reality TV series geniuses at 51 Minds to create something pretty special. The Tester has it all: intense competitions, nail-biting eliminations, and plenty of laughs courtesy of the hilarious Hal Sparks. In this first episode you’ll get to know Barmy, Amped, Star, Goof and the rest of the contestants of The Tester, each driven to win. Over the course of the series look for the competitions to get more physical – and wackier – and emotions to run even higher as we get closer to finding out who will win the job of PlayStation’s next game tester.
Starting this afternoon, you can download the first of eight episodes of The Tester from PlayStation Store or watch it with your friends in the PlayStation Home Theater all for free. We want to hear from you, so please comment and let us know what you think.
In the meantime, enjoy the show!
Is this free? I might check this show out if it’s free to watch. No way I would pay for the episodes though.
I still have to ask “why?”
As much as I love and Support the Playstation brand and think this idea for a show is great, I just really can’t stand reality TV anymore.
I may catch a few episodes later but hopefully you do it differently from traditional Reality TV shows because that format is tired.
Keep up the good work on giving us different types of content and services on the PSN, slowly making it better with every piece you add regardless of if its something I like or not :)
Nevermind, I just re-read and saw that the episodes are indeed free. Sorry for being a dumb-***
I’m going to pull a Miss Cleo and call this one right now….
FAIL
Looking forward to downloading it “for teh lulz”
From what I understand, yes, it’s free.
TO BLOG MAINTENANCE: The embedded videos on the blog postings don’t work on the PS3 browser… Is is a Flash 10 thing or what? I tried using the search box and posting this very comment using my PS3 browser as well, but it wouldn’t bring up the text input box once I clicked in the field. Please tell me there is a fix on the way on either the PS Blog or browser end. It’s a bit silly to have a link on the PS3 home page to the PS Blog that doesn’t function properly on a PS3. Just looking out..
are they all going to be free?
@xuipid:
You don’t have to be Miss Cleo or Carnac the Magnificent to figure out it will bomb.
Still free, I’ll check out the pilot.
God this is so hilariously dumb. The winner of the show will get a $10/hr job, and will be an outcast within SCEA QA, I am sure.
It looks like a bad mash-up of Real World and Road Rules Challenges… /facepalm
@9 Zezzler
RTFP
“Starting this afternoon, you can download the first of eight episodes of The Tester from PlayStation Store or watch it with your friends in the PlayStation Home Theater all for free.”
cant wait look pretty good.
I hope it works as a show! You never know till it actually comes out and we’ve seen a few episodes to truly judge it..
but i can’t help thinking maybe putting the $$ into something else, be it an overall PSN service upgrade to better compete with the “other” online service, or really trying to fix HOME, or paying the PSblog people more $$$ (that one’s for you guys) would be money better spent for Sony right now..
btw, that Capcom giveaway post is insane!!
I’m just amazed that these people are going to compete for a testing position. Everyone that I’ve known who has gone into testing has had nothing but bad things to say about it.
It’s essentially the “mail room” of the game industry.
Not to be too overly critical, as I do appreciate the effort…but shouldn’t the award be something with, I know know, value?
Two words of advice for you Hal
Don’t suck!
I’m downloading it now…
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so when is the video store and digital comics coming to Canada?
sorry sony but i hate reality tv. its a bunch of cry babies who become “famous” for really doing nothing but appearing on tv. i’ll stick with watching house. hugh laurie is f’in hilarious.
Did I read correctly?… FREE?…the whole season is free?
Now THAT is how you reward Playstation 3 owners.
Must Miss
This must be Playstation Network’s Version of Jersey Shore.
looking forward to this…enjoyed WCG ultimate gamer on Hulu (which Star was also on) and am glad to see a similar show with a Playstation focus. I can’t wait to download it today
What the hell do obstacles, and other Fear Factor/Real World competitions have to do with being a video game tester?
I know it’s free, but I’m not going to download it…not supporting this crap. I wish you would have spent your money more wisely, gamers dont want reality TV or Home.
this actually looks cool…wish i would of known when to sign up. this is one reality show i could actually watch.
speaking of updates…can you guys talk to whoever you need to to make a PixelJunk Monsters 2 happen? my girlfriend & i discovered the game and now have perfects on every level on hard core (both islands) and all the trophies. that game is by far one of the best PSN releases ever. i’m sure other people would be excited too. or at least a 3rd island DLC.
*end rant*
I wish I was tester and had a sweet nickname
holy crap… its uploaded on the video side of the store…. why sony? why only for americans???
More PS3 bragging and still no word on fixing the epic fail that is customer service
I’d like to test Gran Turismo 5 on my PS3. May we have that, please?
Tell you what – let’s trade this idiotic “Tester” silliness for GT5.
Deal?
awewsome!
who the hell thought Hal Sparks was a good idea? was Vh1 having a yard sale or something?
Oh I’m very excited…it’s been a long time coming and I want to see how the show going to portray us cast members.
I’m actually looking forward to this! The way I see it is I have so many games to play right now and I have 4 already paid for that are coming out within a month (HR,FFXII,BF:BC2,GOW3). I see this as a fun diversion and it’ll be entertaining to watch.
Forget what all the naysayers have to say. Sony, your doing an excellent job. Keep it up!
I wished the challenges were more gaming/PlayStation/testing oriented instead of games taken from Big Brother as they seem to be from the previews.
I hate reality shows, but I’m very curious of how a “nerd” one would come out. Also, the preview was cool. I’ll download it. :D
Looking forward to The Tester, but here’s hoping that on top of the Te Tester we get an update as awesome as UK’s.
UK got new (as in not yet in the US store) Assassin’s Creed DLC, Resident Evil 5 DLC, Star Wars Force Unleashed DLC, Dante’s Inferno DLC and some awesome new Dynamic themes. Also a YAKUZA 3 demo.
So yay for Tester, but yay more if US gets most of what UK got… at least the DLCs…
Sony, do you even know who your audience is?
We were presented the choice a long time ago to watch crappy tv or play videogames. We chose videogames. Now our videogame provider is offering us crappy tv? NO! No no no! We don’t want this!
Sony, it’s your money and you can spend it however you want… but in the future you might want to look into what your audience actually wants. You have large swaths of gamers begging to give you their money… waiting over a year for Socom DLC, 3/4s of a year for Motorstorm:PR DLC… tons of gamers begging to cross game chat and telling you they will pay you for it. What do we get instead? A 3d dance simulator called “Home” and a freaking reality tv show? Are you guys freaking serious?
Can someone help me find it on the store. I followed thetester.com site help and it didn’t help me.
I thought the preview last week was pretty funny. I might have been laughing at the show and not necessarily with it, but it did entertain me. While I think the whole idea is a little silly and the reward rather trivial, I will definitely check out the first episode.
Hey Susan!!!
Where is that DARN(!!!) Optional Subtitle?!?!? I really want to watch this show and to UNDERSTAND, but unfortunately, I CAN’T!!! When will you finally make my dream into a reality??? SUBTITLE!
Nice! Been waiting for this to start since it was announced. Be sure to watch it in Home for free rewards ;)
i have to say at first i thought this might be silly… but then i saw the teaser trailer and thought again once more…..
im going to watch them all because i love watching people make fools of them selfs for my entertainment :)
and i think sony knows this so thanks sony!!
is it out now in the US?
I just pray that the general public doesn’t catch wind of this embarrasing fail-fest.
As PlayStation owners, we’ll never be able to show our faces again.
probably would be good to watch just to see how the ones who loss end up failing… its always good to see the disasters.. i dont think being a game tester is all that great… i mean, honestly, how much would it really pay for that job…? to play games, even the worst ones out there… might end up losing your enjoyment of games…
id check it out, if my PS3 werent broken… Sony needs to fix the systems before they can deliver content…
Playstation3 – “Only does everything(when it works)”
if amped does not win someone will get hurt…
I’ll check it out.
Man I still can’t believe we haven’t broke the blog!!! C’mon everyone, let’s go on the JohnBlog and comment spam! LOL
Has anyone noticed that Cigi from WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 1 is one of the contestants? Always good to see that they are selective in giving fresh faces a chance.
A couple of the chicks in the show are hot, they should get in touch with me
“and emotions to run even higher as we get closer to finding out who will win the job”
Sony, this is RETARDED. And that Fat guy on the show is really fat.
Cool, going to download.