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Sony Launches Online Sports Game Portal

Posted by simoniker on from the battle-for-sports-gamers-commences dept.

Thanks to CNET News for their article discussing Sony's attempts to attract PS2 online sports players with a new portal. According to the site: "The new version of 989SportsOnline.com is set to launch Aug. 26 to coincide with the release of the football game 'NFL GameDay 2004'. The online service will feature message boards, tournaments, downloadable rosters and player rankings, and will let people who use a PS2 headset conduct voice chats." This further muddies the waters for online sports players, as "Electronic Arts, the independent publisher that dominates sports gaming, is putting all its online sports titles on the PS2 this year... EA has refused thus far to support Xbox Live for its sports games, citing concerns about the business model. Microsoft has its own sports lineup, XSN Sports, that also offers online play and lets people access message boards and player rankings." Which platform/online sports service is going to come out on top?

1 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Can you read? by drewmca · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Um, are you people drunk or just incapable of reading? Their network is for 989 games. The reason EA doesn't support xbox live yet is because they built their own network up and want to get something from it. The article mentions that. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT EA'S GAMES ARE PLAYABLE ON SONY'S NETWORK! They won't support it (yet) for the same reason they won't support xbox live. They have their own network and are big enough to force people to use it.
    Quite frankly, Sony's network sounds like despite everything they said before about xbox live, they like the model. Some of the posters here do, too, judging from the "online voice will be the killer app" comment. That's been around for a year now on xbox.
    People need to stop getting off so much when "their" system is perceived to be better than all of the other "crap" systems. One system is as good as another, or you may prefer one based on your own taste in games. The fact is, with 3 console makers pushing each other, we're all going to end up seeing better games and better features.