Sega team up with 30 cable TV providers

Sega Enterprises today revealed plans to work with 30 Japanese cable television companies to offer high speed Internet access through Dreamcast. Sega will provide cable-Internet-ready Dreamcast systems to the cable television companies, who will then sell the systems to customers. Sega will serve as the provider of online games and a videophone service through the cable network. The system will go on test in February and will see full distribution in April.

The group of companies includes the nation's two largest cable companies, Jupiter Telecommunications Co. and Titus Communications Corp. In all, the 30 companies reach 70 per cent of cable television viewers, or seven million households.

The companies have big plans for the future of the system, which they believe will be a success due to the fast access of cable lines (10-30 times the speed of phone lines) and the fixed monthly rate, as opposed to the per minute charge currently in place for local Japanese phone calls. We already know that we'll be seeing digital cameras hooking up to Dreamcast, but the companies involved seem to be interested in using the system for distributing movies and music as well.

Of course, this announcement follows numerous announcements by game companies in Japan about future plans for online gaming. Over the weekend, Square said they would be working with NTT Communications Inc. to take their games online. Previously, Capcom announced their partnership with KDD to begin an online network for their fighting games.

With Sega's recent promise of focusing on the network side of their business, expect more details to emerge on broadband connectivity for Dreamcast in the coming weeks.

Courtesy of IGN.com