Old but VERY intresting news...
 

"gamesindustry.net

Following last weeks announcement of a new push to increase the
installed base of PS2 network adapters and hard drives in Japan, SCEI is to provide an incentive for developers and publishers of online games by making them exempt from any Sony license fee.

Although Sony does plan to charge a 15 per cent royalty on online titles in future, for now it plans to help publishers to make the decision to create commercially risky online games with this major financial incentive.

Combined with the news that the network adapter is to be sold in retail stores in Japan for the first time, this represents an aggressive move into the online gaming business in the Far East for Sony. It's still not clear which - if any - of these moves will be replicated in the USA (where PS2 online services launched last August) or in Europe (where a launch is not expected until at least Q3 this year).


I got a feeling that this can really give Sony's long term online plans a boost... Imagine if companies will actually be able to offered putting out risky titles that can turn out to be sucessful later on.

This is the kind of stuff Nintendo should do... but they won't so why am I even saying it?

This is incredible!

Just another reason why I love Sony...I hope they continue this policy with PS3. Sacrificing money to get Network Adapters and Online titles into peoples' homes...in hopes that eventually, they'll begin to rake in profits.

This benefits gamers and developers :)

Microsoft did similar things with providing servers for XBL titles, as well as taking a hit financially with every XBox system sold.

My advice for Nintendo: Follow suit, you money-hungry apes...

Forget Nintendo... if they will start taking REAL steps to "online" gaming next gen... then FORGET IT.

But by the end of this gen you can expect PS2's online game library to be as equally good as it's offline counterparts.

That would be an amazing sight to see... for Sony or Microsoft.

I can't wait til FFXI comes out, hopfully they make the hard drive deal as painless as possible.