Sony originally planned online community for PS in '97
- Posted March 28th, 2008 at 12:08 EDT by Mike Harradence
- 4,098 views
- 23 Comments
Chris Deering, the former President of Sony Entertainment, has said that the company had originally conceived the idea of developing an online social community back in 1997 for the original PlayStation.
Speaking with MCV, Deering was questioned as to what he considered his biggest challenge to be at the company, to which he responded: “Getting Sony to believe that PlayStation could be a community online…”
“We had a secret test program in Europe back in 1997 on PSOne, running a text-based community chat group with a special box called Net-Station that hooked up PCs to the TV.”
“The project code name was ‘Moccasin 5’. It operated across the major countries of Europe, and had quite a following, even from the US,” said Deering.
He also revealed that Sony were planning to introduce a TV Channel for the PlayStation 2 back in 2002, although the idea was ultimately cancelled due the slow uptake of broadband Internet among the mass market.
“At Sony Europe, we later worked on a PS2 concept called ‘Central Station’, which was planned to stream its own PlayStation TV channel, back in 2002,” explained Deering.
“But uptake in broadband took longer to reach mass market than we expected, and we couldn’t get other regions to buy in.”
Comments
-
-
-
DemonOfRazgriz07 |
DemonOfRazgriz07- 12:20pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 3
its sad that some people still have dial-up to this day XD. not so much on PS3, but i know on XBL, even DSL is bashed on haha I have cable and almost always have a great connection.
-
Reagan1981
- 12:37pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 4
Good thing a ps network didnt take about 10 years to go public.....oh wait.
-
Deusthousand |
Deusthousand- 12:44pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 5
If this has been the case since 97, then why would they let crapbox get the upper hand on social if its been thought of 11 yrs. ago.IDK if I believe this.
-
Stickemup
- 12:50pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 6
You guys are crazy! Apparently none of you had the joy of hooking up a Dreamcast to dial-up! Nothing better than a system with a phone jack. The Dreamcast community was awesome! That was the first time we had a community really dedicated to console gamers, who were online with a console.
-
-
-
-
InfernoReaper |
GrimDarkling- 1:34pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 10
Ah the coding strieks again!!!
---
On a lighter note, someone slap jicaley for speaking about in-game XMB.
---
On a much lighter note, dialup didn't seem so bad back when everyone had it. It just seems bad now because we have faster solutions. Companies like Time Warner bottleneck their fiber lines so they can slowly upgrade their speeds whenever someone gets close enough to them. Time Warner customers could EASILY get 50MBps but the market just isn't there yet.
-
AclayPS3
- 2:45pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 11
Back in 1997, the whole Internet world wasn't even as near as big as it is now. I really couldn't see the PS1 with online but it if it did happen back then, the Playstation Network would easily be on par with Xbox Live.
Microsoft started it's online service several years ahead of Sony, but the Playstation Network will grow and it will get better and better with each passing year. I just hope that developers don't get to much involoved with Online play because I've been noticing that a lot of developers make a game that has a very weak campaign mode, but the multiplayer or Online gameplay makes the game great such as Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4. In my opinion, the campaign/story in a game makes the game great, not Online.
-
Stevo_ya_bass |
Manny_Ray- 2:53pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 12
Im sure dial up could of been good even on ps1, I used to play games like transport tycoon, duke nukem, need for speed, quake, and red alert 2 on the pc at about this time an it was amazin, even on dial-up.
Gingo, how can you say your glad it took 10years to develop? We would have been alot further in terms of an online community if things had been pushed earlier.
Also microsoft where always gonna have the upper hand with any online form of network. How many millions of dollars an years old experience do they have under their belt with these things?
-
rahstar2003 |
explosive78- 3:29pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 13
Whatever, all that early planning and home is taking this long. Im sorry im a playstation fan, but this sounds like bull to me.
-
zombieking36
- 3:59pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 14
All of you are spoiled! We have loads less lag during onine gameplay then the 360, be happy! The game itself is all that matters in the end. But still, some of these would have been nice, but ultimately failures like they predicted.
-
tabular
- 6:58pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 15
I'd say PSN is better than Xbox Live. Sure they have an intergrated chat. But we have 6 way chat (and video confrence) as well as less restrictions for online networks. Not to mention that the important features are the same on both and PSN is free. With Home and in game XMB on the way I pitty those stuck with a yearly Live bill.
-
Demobot
- 7:39pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 16
This guy is full of crap. End of story. It took Sony 11 years and counting to come up with a decent online platform. The dreamcast was online at the very begining and It took MS like a year and a half or so after launch to drop XBL. Sony just dropped the ball on online gaming. But atleast they are making progress
-
Muzikguy |
Muzikguy- 9:56pm GMT - March 28th, 2008
- 17
^ You are the one who's full of crap my friend. Dreamcast online wasn't that great, online gaming on a console was still new. So, with the PS2 it was still new. Online play on the PS1? Give me a break. I never would have played online if it was on the PS1. Could you imagine how bad that would be? Especially when you think of the PC equivalent back then? Consoles are finally rivaling PCs and THAT is why we're hearing more about the "online cmmunity" that Sony is creating. I suppose you think Second Life and World of Warcraft happened over night? If Sony was making something for the PS1, then the PS2, but the PS3 came out, wouldn't it be wise to make something on the PS3? Would you guy into some sort of "second life" right now for the PS2? Of course you wouldn't. It wouldn't have been that great anyway.
-
-
citizen King |
DCI- 6:10am GMT - March 29th, 2008
- 19
Well you can blame it on the Sony Japan since the Japanese don't care for online gaming..
-
-
Alpha2
- 5:19pm GMT - March 29th, 2008
- 21
The problem was the availibility of broadband. In Japan they have FREE wifi, you cant get that here unless you;re in a public park and it's rare even then to get a decent signal. The PS2 was going to have the Harddrive and a function to download videos but SOny felt that there werent enough people with a fast enough connection to justify it and that's why they almost didnt even bother to release the harddrive until Square pushed for it with Final Fantasy 11.
You dont have to believe any of it, but it's true and the truth beats out anything if you listen to it. As for why XBL is supposeledly so much better, all it is is perception, M$ brought it out and every one who pays for it has to justify it so they run aroun screaming like it's the greatest thing ever when it's no different than anything else we've had in the past it's just all controlled by M$, They get lag and crap servers just like we do, voice chat built into the system, it's not something that live provides, but it does keep you from using it unless you give M$ money. Content wise it's no secrete that M$ has been buying things left and right signing contracts that limit the availibility of the same content to other people in the same buisness, namely sony and nintendo. If the Wii was to get a streaming video channel right now they couldnt put family guy episodes on it because M$ has that locked up.
-
-
Demobot
- 7:35pm BST - March 31st, 2008
- 23
To Musikguy. I played unreal tournament and Phantasy Star on the Dreamcast. Sure it was dial up and had its problems. but it was fun. Do you remember what fun is. And if Sony had released a game like second life or even had a online plan earlier on in the PS2's life cycle then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Cause Sony would have done everything that MS has already done.
Advertisement