Gather \'round you overgrown children. It\'s time for a story about Bleem: The little engine that could not, and Sony: The really fat guy in the caboose. (he he he, I\'m so funny)
Once upon a time (1998), in a land far away (California), two people came up with an idea that would change the way PSX games were looked at forever. Randy Linden and David Herpolsheimer programmed a thing called "Bleem!" that could not only play PSX games on the PC, but could also play them using the graphical capabilities of the next gen graphics cards. When the first beta release was exposed to the public, PC fans rejoiced. No PSX emulator was as stable, easy to install, or gave nearly as much of a graphical enhancement as Bleem did. Of course, with all this excitement on emulated PSX games on the PC, Sony\'s brow was raised.
How big and successful could this "Bleem!" program get? What effect could this have on the PSX and its software? Out of probably fear alone, Sony took action. Not unlike Microsoft, Sony wanted to eliminate the threat before it got too big. But unlike Microsoft, Sony took the "suing" rout instead of the "buying out" rout. Sony quickly found out though that Suing Bleem wouldn\'t be as easy as they initially planned.
In February, 1999, a few days after Sony lost a court battle with Connectix, the makers of a Macintosh PSX emulator called "Virtual Game Station," Bleem launched their software.
"If Sony wants to get litigious with us, it\'ll be very tough," said David Herpolsheimer. "They have a very, very big stick, and they could bludgeon us to death with lawyers if they want to." And bludgeon Sony did.
Court battle after court battle lead to Sony losing again and again. They tried everything from copyright infringements to trade violations, but it was all in vain. Because of the way Bleem was made, Sony could not lay a hand on the tiny company. Bleem was completely reverse engineered from the software down to the hardware, making any argument from Sony worthless. Because all of Bleem\'s code was 100% original, Sony could not successfully sue them. "There\'s not a bit of code in there that Sony can say is theirs," he said. "Legally, they don\'t have a leg to stand on," Herpolsheimer said.
Bleem really didn\'t find anything wrong with emulating PSX games on the PC. They figured it could only help Sony. "It\'s absolutely the end of this hardware\'s life cycle," Herpolsheimer said. "It\'s a dead platform, it\'s over." Bleem actually wanted to come to an agreement with Sony: Because hardware sales were way down, Sony should support emulators and continue making money from licensed games and software development tools.
This went on for more than a year, followed by one big blow from Bleem. I guess after Sony gave Bleem such a hard time for so long, they wanted to get back at them. Word got out that a Dreamcast version of Bleem was on the way called "Bleemcast!" Bleemcast would more than quadruple the Dreamcast\'s library, give most PSX games double their original resolution as well as full-screen anti-aliasing and bi-linear filtering, and would only cost $20 for a pack of 100! Bleemcast did to PSX games what the PS2 only dreamed of doing, as MM already showed in a picture. Bleemcast also had some adapters to use Sony controllers on the Dreamcast:
Oh, and what the heck. Here are two pics comparing a PSX game on the PSX to a Bleemcasted game. This should give your eyes a rest from reading all that text.
PSX: (obviously blown up so the resolution was the same as the Bleemcast pic)
DC:
A quote from wired.com:
Herpolsheimer expects the new line to push many "fence sitters" toward the Dreamcast console. "There\'s really no excuse to not own a Dreamcast now. With top-selling PlayStation games selling for around $20 and Sega\'s new "free Dreamcast" program, you can walk out of the store with a new Dreamcast, plus bleem!, and four best-selling PlayStation games for less than the cost of a new PlayStation."
OUCH! With the Bleemcast, Bleem delivered an arguably well-deserved blow to Sony. It hurt PSX sales (slightly), and even more importantly, it made the PS2 look less intriguing. Not like it mattered though. The PS2s sales were so strong that even Bleemcast couldn\'t keep PS2s on the shelves.
Delay after delay, reduction after reduction in what Bleemcast had to offer (because of Sony), and Bleemcast was finally released. Unfortunately, it was really too little too late. Sony had won in the end. The small programming team from California was no more. They went back into their basements and began to think of their next big project. What diabolical scheme will they come up with next? We will soon find out... DUN DUN DUN!
The End
After reading article after article of what Bleem was, and about all the court cases Sony had against them, even a Sony fanboy like me can\'t help but feel sorry for them. My opinion of Bleem has changed. If Sony worked with Bleem instead of against them, both companies could be so much more than they are today. Bleem really could have been beneficial to both companies. I don\'t blame Sony for what they did, because really, they didn\'t know that this whole thing would turn out like this. And I still think even Sega would have done the same thing if they were in that position.
