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Sega moves Internet subscribers to Earthlink USA
The Internet arm of video game company Sega Corp., announced on Friday that it will transfer subscribers of its Internet service provider (ISP) and gaming network, SegaNet, to EarthLink Inc. and open the online platform to all online game players.
SegaNet subscribers will now become EarthLink customers but will continue to pay $19.95 for service. On June 26, EarthLink announced it was raising its monthly ISP fee by $2.00 to $21.95 a month, in line with a recent similar price hike by AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit.
SegaNet launched last September as both a traditional ISP and a network for gamers on both PCs and Sega's Dreamcast console to play multiplayer, interactive games. SegaNet also offers community features like chat rooms and gaming tournaments.
There are currently 26 games across the PC and Dreamcast platforms enabled for SegaNet. Sega said in a release that as new consoles come out later this year, such as the GameCube from Nintendo Co. Ltd. and the XBox from Microsoft Corp., it will also support games on those platforms.
"It makes total sense that Sega is charging for content and not for access," said Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix. "I think Sega's trying to put out the message that they're ... completely ready to do networked software for all platforms."
Pidgeon said he expects there will be almost 10 million subscribers to online gaming platforms by 2005, drawing in subscription revenue alone of $1.17 billion. He estimated that the SegaNet ISP could have as many as 200,000 subscribers in the U.S.
Atlanta-based Earthlink, the No. 2 ISP in the U.S., has about 4.9 million subscribers.
SOURCE: Reuters.
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