Just ask executives at Sega of America Inc. Two years ago, Sega spent more than US$100 million to launch an online gaming service for its Dreamcast console, It flopped miserably. Recently, Sega announced it is getting out of the console business altogether and will refocus solely on developing and selling games for other companies' machines.
"People have been talking about this for over 10 years now," said David Cole, president of DFC Intelligence, a gaming industry research firm. While the announcements at the gaming conference in Los Angeles are significant, he said, they're only a small step into what for now at least is a pretty small market.
"There's going to be a fairly slow build, a lot of experimentation before this really reaches a lot of people," Cole said.
According to a recent survey of console game players by Jupiter Media Metrix, online services rank low on players' priorities.
Only about 10 percent said online capabilities were an important factor in choosing a game system. About 30 percent said the ability to play DVDs was important, while 46 percent said the lowest price was most important.
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