Versus fighting gets redefined by the company that invented it

In a press release issued today, Capcom of Japan and KDD Corp, a leading international network company, officially announced the development of a fighting network and multiple online fighting titles. The system will be called Match Service and could be set for Japanese launch as early as March 1.

Using a KDD-developed technology called "Data on Demand" as a base, the new service will offer transfer rates below 70 milliseconds. Even with this high transfer rate, KDD stress that security will be in place so that individual information will not be leaked out of the system.

In terms of pricing, gamers in Japan will have to front the charge for dialling into a nearby server (local calls in Japan aren't free) and will have to pay a small per-minute fee for use of the service. A five minute game session is expected to cost between 50 and 60 yen, which translates, roughly, to around 30p.

KDD seem to have further plans for the service that will take it beyond Dreamcast and Japan. The company aim to make it available for other systems in the future and hope to allow players on one system to fight with players on an entirely different system. Furthermore, they hope to have an international equivalent of this service so that players in Japan will be able to go online against overseas opponents.

Capcom of Japan have officially announced that they're working on multiple fighting titles that will enable players to battle online through the system developed by KDD. We've known for a while now that Marvel vs Capcom 2 is set for Japanese release on March 23, but today's announcement revealed that the game will be fully playable online. Also confirmed for online play are the upcoming Power Stone 2, SNK vs Capcom, Private Justice League 2 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. In case you haven't been keeping up with Dreamcast news of late, Private Justice League 2 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike weren't previously confirmed as being in development for Dreamcast. In fact, Private Justice League 2's existence, both in the arcade and home, was nothing more than a rumour.

We'll have more details on all these games and the KDD network in the near future, but online gameplay has clearly taken a giant leap into the mainstream of console gaming today.

Courtesy of IGN.com