February 11th, 2000
[2: 39 PM] Sony In The Midst Of Preparing Connectix Lawsuit

An Observer who wishes to remain anonymous wrote to us about a possible lawsuit from Sony against Connectix Corporation regarding their Virtual Game Station. The letter in full:

"This afternoon, I heard from two separate insiders at Sony SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment/America) that a suit againt Connectix is being prepared. According to one source, Sony was never approached for permission to market the emulator or even to use the Playstation name.

I picked-up this information talking to two SCEA employees, neither of whom work at particularly high levels in the division's San Francisco Bay Area headquarters, so it seems to be common knowledge there. [Reference deleted] therefore it is necessary for me to remain anonymous if this report is published.

My personal spin: If distribution of the product is sucessfully blocked, expect to see Virtual Playstation become the most popular piece of pirated Mac software ever.

We called Connectix's spokesperson for the Virtual Game Station, Albert Fong, who told us that it is Connectix's policy not to comment on specualtion and rumor. Mr. Fong also told us that Connectix developed the product entirely in-house without outside help (which includes Sony).

The Mac Observer Spin: Sony certainly has an obligation to protect its trademarks, but it should seem obvious that the Virtual Game Station could result in more PlayStation games being sold. As Sony collects a royalty from each game sold (indeed it is rumored that Sony sells its PlayStation units at a loss to foster more disk sales), more discs sold would mean more royalties.

We certainly agree with our Observer's prediction that Virtual Game Station would become the single most pirated piece of software of all time if Connectix is forced to stop selling it. Hopefully this will not happen. Connectix will hopefully be able to work things out with Sony (perhaps paying a royalty of their own) and the Mac will have made a giant leap forward as a premier gaming platform. Let's all hope.

Connectix - Sony