Sony unveils online PS3 plans

Further details of the PlayStation Network Platform announced by SCE boss Ken Kutaragi in Tokyo yesterday have emerged, including the fact that the ability to play games online will be included in the basic free service.

Additional information about the service has emerged as the slides used by Kutaragi in his presentation have been posted online, bringing with them a host of details of exactly what will be included in Sony's online offering.

As reported yesterday, the PlayStation Network Platform will have a basic free service which will be available to all purchasers of the PS3 from the day of launch in November, and which will be co-created by Sony Online Entertainment (creators of the Station.com system used by games such as Everquest, Planetside and Star Wars Galaxies) and GameSpy.

The free service will support a host of communication and community features, including voice and video chat, messaging, unique user IDs and handles, and matchmaking, ranking and data upload and download service for games.

Crucially, the basic service will allow users to play games online - a factor which sets it apart from Microsoft's equivalent free service, Xbox Live Silver, which enables community features and content purchases, but doesn't allow users to play multiplayer online games.

Sony's system will be handing off significantly more control to game publishers, who will be able to run their own game servers as they see fit. Although Sony will be creating a standard infrastructure for the service, with data centres in Asia, North America and Europe, the system will still run over the conventional Internet and publishers will be able to connect their own servers to it.

Read more from the source: Euro Gamer

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