Very important news for users of the Dreamcast’s on-line capabilities. Hopefully, good news…
Sega.com announced today that they have partnered with EarthLink, and will now provide all of the content previously available exclusively through SegaNet to gamers outside the network. EarthLink effectively becomes SegaNet’s “preferred ISP”, similar to how AT&T was before SegaNet launched.
Current SegaNet accounts will be converted to EarthLink accounts seamlessly, with a new monthly price of $19.99. How this affects customers who purchased a Dreamcast with the SegaNet rebate was not addressed. “EarthLink can provide the speed, reliability and customer service that gamers want to be competitive online,” said Marc Connor, who holds the interesting title of Director of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances, Sega.com.
This is a distinct change from Sega’s original plans for their gaming ISP. Early last year Sega of America president Peter Moore told gamers.com, “What SegaNet will provide is a direct hub network for SegaNet subscribers… rather than being routed all around the Internet as I might be on, let’s say, EarthLink or MSN.”
The alliance sounds as if SegaNet is being brought into the EarthLink fold, most likely driven by lower numbers of paying subscribers than Sega had anticipated; the merging of ISPs has become common as of late, such as NetZero’s recent purchase of Juno. The new partnership will bring much higher exposure to SegaNet while providing over a quarter million new monthly customers to EarthLink.
Also stated in the release is the first official comment that SegaNet will expand to other systems sooner rather than later. The statement specifies that “as new consoles come online later this year, Sega.com plans to open its high-speed network to a wider audience of online gamers.” Since the PlayStation 2 is the only console set to go online this year (pending a shock announcement from Nintendo), we can take as a given that Sega and Sony’s recently announced network partnership will extend beyond Japan.
There you have it, everyone.
Source: SegaWeb