Ted Turner Tapping into gaming.

[solidius23]

For the millionaire who wants everything.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Seeking to bring the television programming model to video games, the Turner Broadcasting unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news) on Wednesday said it would launch an online "network" that will let subscribers play hundreds of classic video games.

 

Turner said GameTap would launch later this year with a library of more than 1,000 games from 17 different publishers, including Activision Inc. (Nasdaq:ATVI - news) and Ubisoft (UBIP.PA).

 

Turner executives look at GameTap in the same way as they do some of their cable TV networks -- an outlet for older but still popular programming that might not be otherwise available anymore.

 

"We have a brand new network... but Turner's in the same business it's always been," Blake Lewin, creator of GameTap and a vice president for product development at Turner, said in a recent interview. "We want to program games as if they were TV shows."

 

While online distribution of games is nothing new, no one to date has created an online repository of games on the size and scale of GameTap, particularly for older games. In many cases, people have to resort to illegal downloads to get and play the older games they loved as kids but can no longer buy.

 

Just as Turner's networks largely confine themselves to older programming that has finished its first run, GameTap will not offer games from the current generation of consoles.

 

Using emulation software, it will let anyone with a PC and a broadband connection play classic games from older consoles like the NES and Genesis, as well as older arcade and PC games.

 

Lewin said publishers have largely been receptive to the idea, as have the console manufacturers, even though GameTap will essentially replicate their old retail hardware with new, free software.

 

"There's nothing illegal about our building the code to emulate," he said.

 

SECRET PROJECT

 

In an industry that thrives on rumor and speculation, Turner managed to keep GameTap a secret through more than two years of development and with a distributed team of more than 100 people on the project.

 

The GameTap servers will be hosted out of the same Atlanta operation that runs CNN.com and

NASCAR.com, among other sites, and will leverage Time Warner's AOL network as well.

 

The games are securely downloaded to the user's hard drive through Turner's custom application. While they download, Turner will serve up streaming video clips with news, entertainment, and cross-promotions for movies and other properties.

 

"We're creating a home where all the great games come to live on," Dennis Quinn, executive vice president of business development for Turner, said in an interview.

 

Turner is planning on a long lead-up to GameTap, with months of advertising and promotions before its full launch in the fourth quarter.

 

"We are going to promote and launch it from the Time Warner family as if it were a new network," Quinn said.

 

Turner has not announced any pricing yet for the service. But publishers will get a straight licensing fee for giving their games to GameTap, as opposed to any share of sales.

 

Ted must have some kids who dont know how to emulate on the puter or something so they got their dad to pay someone to do it in a bigger way!!!

[Daeval]

I give it a week before someone's figured out how to crack the encryption on the roms.

 

And if they're using old games, just how much download time do they think they're going to have for advertisements?

[OverlordMondo]

Hey, I'm just glad that old games are gonna be reaching younger people. I hope it works.

[Gryph]

Meddlin' kids!

 

But hey, I think this is a pretty good idea. Companies getting compensation for old games they created and having them being played again is a great thing for all parties. Except for people like us. Now it all depends on how it is implemented.

[ken_cinder]

Cracking the encryption on the roms?

Who cares? Would you PAY for this service when you know you can get ahold of yours for free, and NOT encrypted?

ROOFLES! I know I wouldn't.

[Weirdy]

I bet pretty soon it will be the only way to get roms

[Daeval]

I think it's great that old games will be "out there" again, in a more mainstream sense than collecting old carts, but I think they'll have trouble appealing to people who aren't already into old school gaming/emulation.

 

Furthermore, I can see this leading to a crackdown on "rogue" emulation, including those games and systems which aren't going to end up licensed by this company.

 

Good things could come of this (at the very top, a renewed willingness for companies to experiment with different gameplay formulas), but so could bad things. I'm interested to see how the implementation works out.

[solidius23]

its just gonna go in a circle people who pay are gonna share it with thier friends who are gonna share it with others, just the way it is now.

[Z-Neo]

The GameTap servers will be hosted out of the same Atlanta operation that runs CNN.com and

NASCAR.com, among other sites, and will leverage Time Warner's AOL network as well.

 

With all the anti-AOL sentiment, it may not be such a good idea.