Sony, Docomo to Link PlayStation and I-Mode

T O K Y O, Aug. 1 -- Sony Corp. and NTT DoCoMo Inc. revealed plans today to develop services linking their blockbuster products — DoCoMo’s “i-mode” Internet access cell phone and Sony’s PlayStation game console.

Details of the new services were to be announced at a jointnews conference late this afternoon, but a DoCoMo spokesmansaid the companies plan to offer an initial batch of newservices in Japan this winter.

“The initial new service will enable i-mode users to playgames with mobile phones outside and also play the same gamewith PlayStation at home,” said the DoCoMo spokesman.

He declined to disclose details such as the price for anadapter to connect the two, game software or what kind of gameswould be introduced.

In June, game-making unit Sony Computer Entertainment said Sony was in talks aimed at connecting PSone — a smallerversion of its older 32-bit PlayStation console launched on July7 — with the telecoms network of DoCoMo, Japan’s dominantmobile-phone operator.

DoCoMo hopes the new service will further accelerate thegrowth of “i-mode” users. The company last week estimated thatthe number of users may reach 17 million by the year-end, wellabove a target of 10 million set early this year.

Popularity and System Overload

The explosive growth of i-mode, still barely a year old, hasplagued DoCoMo with server failures triggered by capacityoverload on its system.

DoCoMo President Keiji Tachikawa told reporters lastThursday that the 10 million mark for i-mode, which lets usersbrowse the Internet on a business card-sized screen, wouldlikely be hit in early August, with 40,000 to 50,000 newsubscribers signing up for the service each day.

“If you do a quick calculation, the number of users couldbe as high as 17 million by the end of the year,” he said.

The alliance of DoCoMo and Sony also aims to connect thePlayStation to upcoming W-CDMA (wideband code division multipleaccess) broadband technology, which will allow faster datatransmission and permit the display of video images and othermultimedia applications on mobile devices.