[PuPPeT]

No Xbox Live
So it appears that, unlike Xbox, there won't be one central gateway through which you'll play online. Which is ironic, really, as the model Sony is favouring is one that has already been successfully implemented within the PC community. It's a thought that opens questions about the mass appeal of the ENA. Does Shah expect the device to be adopted quickly by PS2 users? Or will it end up being the preserve of a tech-savvy minority?

"If you'd asked me the same question about PSone at the time of it's launch I'd have to say that both cases were true," he says. "Gaming was niche but it was destined to become massmarket. I think the same is true of network gaming. We have to accept that it isn't something every man in the street goes home and does. At the moment, we see it more as an enhancement. As a greater number of people touch and feel the additional experiences that online gaming offers, we think it will become more common for people to decide it will be worthwhile to connect consoles up to their networks."

Again that use of the word 'experiences', echoing SCEE president Chris Deering's comments in an official press release from October 2002 when he said he planned "to provide consumers with the broadest selection of new online experiences and entertainment from a variety of sources." So what are we talking here? A shift in paradigm? The birth of new genres?

"There'll be new experiences for consumers that they've never been able to have on a console before," reckons Shah. "And, to some extent, they will also take a very different form from those on PC. Things like the team aspect of SOCOM. It's the start of a whole notion of collaborating with a group of people that you can't see but can speak to. It's an area that will obviously evolve as people get better and better at collaborating and will want to do this in more complex and challenging ways. As for applications outside gaming you need to look at the PS2 itself. It does a lot of things. It won't make you a cup of tea in the morning but it will play your DVDs – many people also forget that it's a rather good CD player. As the PS2 evolves, and as a new generation of consoles come in the future, we'll see the suite of things you can do on top of playing games increase." Shah goes on to briefly mention the distribution of music and films via broadband before incorporating both these ideas into the notion of gaming itself evolving towards the peripheries of the media: "Take music products that incorporate elements of mixing. The downloading of tracks is something that's very popular already. Which, in itself, brings about issues of security – something that consoles are very capable of providing. Then, if we move over to look at what's happening in Japan, we can see that the 200,000 owners of the Broadband Navigator and HDD are able to operate movie channels and get involved with photo editing and management activities."

Security measures
Security-sensitive consoles? We can see what he's getting at there. The PS2, even with its hard drive fitted, will probably not have a read/write option, making the ripping and burning of CDs problematic. Not impossible – the inclusion of digital output puts paid to that – but it will be something you'll have to work at to achieve. As for the potential of an online version of MTV Music Generator where you'd be able to trade samples and tracks live or, perhaps, a Dance Dance Revolution face-off to the ripped song of your choice… Well, it's enough to trigger a distracting sequence of rhythms and dance steps somewhere in the back of your mind. Pushing them aside, Equip scrambles to catch up with Shah to find him explaining why the UK version of the ENA will be broadband only: "There are issues that arise when a platform attempts to blend too many different access technologies. The reason why we've gone for broadband only in Europe is that narrowband is less entrenched here. We've been slower to adopt Net access than the US. As such, we think that broadband will be taken up a lot quicker. More fundamentally for us the exciting games, the things that are really going to turn people on and enhance the platform, are the broadband products. That's why we decided to take the plunge and look forward."

It's hard not to be impressed. It's a bold and risky move, especially when you consider the amount of obstacles even the most educated of gamers will have to overcome if they wish to get online. So, how is Sony planning to deal with this potential technical stumbling block?

"One of the key areas to address this is in the communication of solutions to the consumer," explains Shah. "We think the playstation.com site will be very important in explaining what the options are – and there are a lot of them – and what the best solution is. The other area is directly on the customer service side, to make sure the teams within our company have got a sufficient understanding of what's going to be required. Previously broadband was adopted by technologists, but now there'll be a reason for someone to go broadband without them being heavily into the Internet. So they'll need a level of support, and dare I say perhaps even a quality of support, that networks have not been used to providing."

It's still a long way from the 'out of the box' approach to online gaming a lot of PS2 owners were hoping for, isn't it?

"It's tricky. The primary area of activity will be in relation to routers and modems. You know there are a lot of other devices – laptops, PCs – that need to be connected in the modern home. A number of companies have already started to produce PlayStation solutions within their boxes and effective support from them is also important. So the consumer won't have an entirely plug-and-play solution. I wouldn't pretend that going on to a broadband network is the same as pulling something out of a box and plugging it in. They will need to turn to their suppliers for the answers. And that's really the focus of what we're doing by trying to change the mentality of some of the suppliers in the chain. We're still working on that one [laughs]."