Thanks Alex! *big smiles*

Alex,
Based on the very limited information given to you by the non-helpful game developers muffled by NDA, and the spiteful employees at Sony who actually think leaking information is wrong (sigh....), what can we expect from the upcoming Sony's developers conference in February and/or what kind of online infrastructure do you think Sony might opt for. Will they:

A: Make an iTunes-like service that offers movies and music and video content with the added ability to sell content you create whilst at the same time not being compatible with any non-Sony device or programs?

B: Make a legitimate online service that doesn't suck the life out of competition and spurs creativity amongst developers and give players something to brag about, custom sound tracks, and simultaneously offer a compelling advantage over Microsoft's online gaming platform?

or

C: Screw the consumer over with a one-stop-shop, jack-of-all-trades, free-membership-nonregulatied-nonunified-dragonballed-lackluster-online-internet chat room that just so happens to give you the ability to compete with friends online via "friend codes", or what we computer users call IP addresses?

Charles Samuel
Vicenza, Italy

D. None of the above. Not exactly, anyway.

The word on the street--and by the street, I mean some supposed scans from an upcoming print mag that are floating around--is that Sony's going for broke and aiming to match up with Xbox Live feature-for-feature. There aren't any specific details on what, if anything, that actually means. It's all a lot of cloak-and-dagger talk from unnamed sources and such. So you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt. But if Sony's really looking to go toe-to-toe with XBL features-wise, then you can already kind of do the math in your head and see where it would go with this.

As I've been saying for a while now, Sony's not dumb. It has to know that its online service this last time around the console mulberry bush wasn't up to par, and there's no way that it would sit back and twiddle its thumbs, taking the same lame-ass "let the publishers deal with it" attitude. And if Sony does, God help them. -- A.N.

Although I have to admit, A.N did a great job answering my question I want to also say that A B and C represented (and were like) some similar online models. The Last one bing Nintendo and Sony's current stance on gaming online. Good job Alex