As widely anticipated, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc filed suit against Connectix Corp on Wednesday over its Virtual Game Station software first shown at MacWorld in San Francisco earlier this month (CI No 3,570). The product, which was on sale at MacWorld for $49, emulates around 80 of the 500 or so games written for the Sony Playstation to run on the Apple Macintosh G3 series. It comes with ready-to-use support for the Mac keyboard and mouse, but also supports game pads and joysticks, and includes a menu screen from which users can define the functions of buttons on many games controllers. Sony, which sells the Playstation for around $125, filed its suit in the US District Court of Northern California. Despite the suit, Connectix said on Thursday that it had begun shipping a revised version, 1.1, of the product. Connectix is the developer of the "Virtual PC" product for the Mac, which allows Windows programs to be run on the Mac. "We have offered this ability successfully and without controversy for years in the PC emulation market and intend to defend the consumer's right to this functionality in the Playstation space as well," said Roy McDonald, president and CEO of Connectix. He said the product benefited developers of Playstation games by increasing the number of places where titles can be played, and that Connectix had developed technology designed to prohibit the use of pirated Playstation titles with the Virtual Game Station.

COPYRIGHT 1999 ComputerWire, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group