Sony has confirmed that a public LittleBigPlanet beta will launch this month ahead of the game’s October release.

“There will be a limited public beta test for LittleBigPlanet in September,” SCEA said in post on the US PlayStation boards.

“In terms of LittleBigPlanet, the game itself is all but complete however we're looking to run a test of the sharing, uploading, downloading and multiplayer server side of the game before it launches to ensure that under a large number of users it does everything it is supposed to.

“This kind of testing is often referred to as a Stress Test, however we're looking a little more deeply into the game experience than simply throwing thousands of players at the online side of the game at the same time.

“If it will be possible to ‘sign up’ for this test, full information on how to do so will be made public in advance of the test. Similarly if the test is going to be conducted in an invitation-only we will let you know ahead of time.”

The open beta will be “large enough that many people from around the world will get in”, SCEA noted in an earlier post, adding that there will not be a LBP demo before the game's release.