The Phantasy Star Universe Xbox 360 open beta has now begun as of Friday morning. It was delayed earlier in the week, but apparently Sega felt it was time to let people test the game out. Unfortunately it looks like the beta has many issues, and considering the game will go live in about a week in North America (not sure about Europe) and is already out in Japan, maybe Sega should have waited another day or two to iron out the little bugs?
In any case, all you need to do to get the beta is log on to Xbox Live and go to the Marketplace. You can download it there, but you are required to have an Xbox Live Gold membership to do so. Once in game, you can create a character and go explore the Gurhal System with up to five other people. Six is the party maximum in the beta, though I"m not sure if that is the maximum for the full game. Any region can take part in this beta test, except for Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
Just to prepare some of you who will try this beta out, some of the issues being reported are complete game hang ups, the inability to finish character creation and trouble logging into the game period. There are other issues as well, and I"ve linked the 1up.com story about it. Otherwise, enjoy the beta for Phantasy Star Universe everyone.