The console gaming arm of Microsoft Corp. will make use of online facilities established by the company's PC gaming arm, while Sony's console games group will go it alone in online gaming, the two companies said on Friday.
In separate interviews on the last day of the game industry's annual trade show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, executives of the two companies also said online console gaming would not eat into the established PC online business.
Representatives from Sony Computer Entertainment of America, which runs Sony Corp's PlayStation 2 business in the U.S., met with engineers from Sony Online Entertainment, a separate division, but decided to use their own resources for the PS2's upcoming online offerings, according to Scott McDaniel, vice president of marketing at Sony Online.
SCEA will release an adapter in late August to enable online play for the PS2, allowing publishers to operate their own networks for each individual game, rather than having one large, closed network for the entire service.
|