Tuesday 31-Jan-2006 10:06 AM Reports from the US appear to confirm Sony is plotting a Live-style service to compete with Microsoft's online offering One of Microsoft's key advantages in both current and next gen is its impressive and rather slick online service Live, which offers a seamless interface to the (sometimes) wonderful world of online gaming. With online one of the key battlegrounds in the next gen, it's something Sony has probably always looked at enviously, but officially seemed less inclined to follow.
Well, all that might be about to change with the arrival of the PS3, if the latest word from the US PlayStation Magazine is to be believed. Despite past assurances that Sony would leave multiplayer matchmaking to game developers and in the remit of individual titles, it now seems like a centralised Live-style service is almost certainly in the works.
PSM reports that Sony wants much, much more than a simple matchmaking and ranking lists service, and developers in possession of the PS3 dev kits will have to meet with Sony's online compliance team to make sure their titles will work with the projected PlayStation Network.
Unnamed sources quoted by the magazine say Sony plans to develop a full PlayStation Network type service to compete head on with the current version of Live. They also say that the service will integrate the PlayStation Portable, which we've always speculated may act as a controller for the PS3 - and now as a portable connection to the online service. The magazine suggests Sony has been plotting this service since just after the delivery of the PS2 Network adaptor.
If PSM's reports are true - and we have to say they're given a boost by the appearance of that recent online questionnaire - it signals a seismic shift in Sony's thinking, but a vital one if it's to compete with Microsoft's perceived online advantage.
Live has already shown that it can be used for much more than multiplayer gaming, with the delivery of movie trailers, music and additional content - key targets and battlegrounds for Sony as it looks to establish Blu-ray and return all divisions of the troubled company to profitability. So it increasingly looks as if PS3 will have an online network to truly compete with Live and push Sony's multimedia content to every PS3 and PSP owner. We'll be following developments on this one closely, though we have to say, it'll have to get the PS3 out of the door first.
But what would you want from a Sony online service, and can Sony compete in the one area where it has always trailed Microsoft? Let us know what you think in our forum below.
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