14 DAY TRIAL // Reports from development sources close to Sony Computer Entertainment are indicating that the firm is planning a major digital distribution service for game content, which could be a key element of PlayStation 3 - or even of a relaunched PS2.
Several senior developers have confirmed that they have spoken informally with Sony about the question of digital distribution on consoles, although these discussions were described as being "purely about technology, not business models" by one source.
However, even the technology discussed could be very revealing regarding the Japanese giant's plans for the coming years - with one source from the development arm of a major third-party publisher claiming that Sony has been discussing the technical feasibility of providing PSone and PS2 titles over digital distribution with them.
This could indicate that Sony is hoping to provide a service for the PS3 similar to Nintendo's Revolution digital download system, which will allow users to access a back catalogue of Nintendo titles through the next-generation console.
In Sony's case the challenges may be significantly more difficult, since PlayStation titles were customarily several hundred megabytes in size, and PS2 titles spanned multiple gigabytes - compared to just a few megabytes or less for NES, SNES and N64 titles in the Nintendo back-catalogue.
However, as Internet connections speed up downloads of this size will be far more reasonable - already, several Xbox Live demos for the Xbox 360 are over 600Mb in size - and our sources indicated that Sony may also be investigating the possibility of remastering certain PS2 titles to allow them to stream later content over the network while the player is already playing early parts of the game.