Connectix president talks about Sony deal.. (PS emulator news)

[Living-In-Clip]

Software developer Connectix and electronics giant Sony announced yesterday a
           "joint technology agreement." Part of the agreement puts the future of Connectix\'s
           PlayStation game console emulator, Virtual Game Station, in the hands of Sony.
           That\'s only one piece of a much broader strategy, Connectix president Roy
           McDonald told MacCentral.

           "In forming this agreement, the two companies have established a great working
           relationship," said McDonald. "Sony is an enormous company with a large range of
           technical interests."

           McDonald explained that the initiative announced yesterday is a broad technology
           agreement with implications far beyond just emulation of the PlayStation. "[The
           agreement] extends to a wide range of computing platforms," said McDonald.

           McDonald said that Connectix and Sony share some common philosophies that
           should make their work very complementary moving forward. "At their core, both
           Connectix and Sony are engineering companies -- companies dedicated to making
           great products," said McDonald.

           Oddly, Sony\'s court disputes with Connectix about the legal validity of Virtual Game
           Station may have contributed to the new agreement. "In the discovery process, Sony
           learned more about the way that our emulation technology works than they would
           have been able to otherwise," mused McDonald.

           Sony and Connectix were at odds from the start -- Virtual Game Station\'s initial
           release in 1999 at Macworld Expo in San Francisco was soon followed by Sony\'s
           lawsuit. Sony successfully requested a preliminary injunction to prevent Connectix
           from distributing the software for close to a year. Connectix ultimately thwarted
           Sony\'s attempts to stifle Virtual Game Station, though -- the injunction was
           overturned on appeal, and the software later went into distribution again, with a PC
           version also available. McDonald is very proud of the legal work Connectix did --
           he said that the company established precedents in fair use law that he expects will
           be cited in future cases for decades to come.

           Until this new relationship was established, Sony and Connectix were going to see
           each other in court again. The two companies were scheduled to square off before a
           jury this past Monday, to find an outcome for Sony\'s original copyright suit against
           Connectix. However, the joint technology agreement settles all the outstanding legal
           issues related to Virtual Game Station.

           Connectix will continue to make Virtual Game Station through the end of June, but
           beyond that, the future of the PlayStation emulator is hazy. Connectix and Sony will
           decide together what the future will hold, and Connectix will continue to provide
           support for Virtual Game Station, so users need not feel abandoned.

           McDonald recognizes that some users are disappointed to hear the news, but he
           encourages Virtual Game Station users to adopt a pragmatic view. "People have to
           be realistic about the market for PlayStation games in a PlayStation 2 world," said
           McDonald.

           With Sony\'s new game console picking up steam, there are fewer and fewer games
           being developed for the PlayStation, despite having an enormously successful run for
           the past several years. McDonald suggested that even if Sony hadn\'t bought the core
           Virtual Game Station assets, it\'s likely that the emulator\'s time would have been up
           soon, anyway.

           The silver lining here, said McDonald, is that his company has access to new
           resources that he hopes will result in new Connectix products in the months and
           years to come.

           "As part of this joint technology agreement, we gain access to technical resources at
           Sony that we\'ve never had before," said McDonald. "And we\'ve also gained new
           cash resources that will enable us to fund new projects."

           Only time will tell what those new projects will be, but for now, Connectix\'s feet are
           still firmly planted in the Macintosh world, and will remain there. Earlier this year the
           company released DoubleTalk, which enables Macs to communicate and share files
           with PC network servers and printers. McDonald says that DoubleTalk has been
           selling briskly since its release in January. The company is also continuing to engineer
           Virtual PC 4, the latest version of its PC emulation software for the Mac.

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0103/16.connectix.shtml