After the Wii made big news last week with details about their online service last week (see here and here), Sony decided to kick it up a notch and reveal some of their plans for the gaming cyberspace.

In a recent interview, PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi announced that PS3 online service will be free. "You can't charge money for network matching and other basic services," he says, dropping a hint of criticism for the Xbox Live fee-based service. Where Sony plans to make their money from the online connectivity, much like Nintendo, is with digital downloads. In fact, Kutaragi went so far as to make predictions about the future of hard disk drives, saying they'll be obsolete within 1 to 2 years. "If you have all the data on servers, you probably no longer need disk drives," he declared. No details were announced about what kind of digital content you'll be able to download, but knowing Sony I'm sure it will not just be related to games -- I'm expecting a "PS3 Online Music & Video Store".

One more non-surprising detail that was confirmed in the interview is that PS3 online capabilities will be available immediately upon the console launch. The details are still slim, but it certainly looks like Sony is making a concerted effort to improve on their bare-bones online functionality with the PS2.

More at gameindusty.biz. Via Joystiq

Report Published by: Mark Raby