Cable Internet provider Road Runner Wednesday announced plans
to offer free online gaming to customers of the high-speed Internet service
through a partnership with SegaSoft Networks Inc.
Road Runner is a joint venture between Time Warner, MediaOne, Microsoft,
Compaq and Advance Newhouse. The multi-player gaming service is already
available to MediaOne customers in several markets and will be rolled out
to all other Road Runner customers over the next few months.
SegaSoft will use Road Runner’s nationwide fiber backbone to deliver a
customized version of its Heat.Net gaming service. Road Runner officials
say the games will be delivered up to 100 times faster over its broadband
network than a standard dial-up connection, enabling gamers to battle
opponents across the country with very little latency.
The service will feature such popular multi-player games as Quake, Baldur’s
Gate and Duke Nukem’ 3D as well as classic card and board games.
“We are thrilled to add Heat.Net to our gaming line up,” said Meredith
Flynn-Ripley, Road Runner’s vice president of product development.
“We are committed to providing our customers with top-of-class broadband
content and the addition of the nation’s leading gaming service is a
logical extension of this strategy.”
Wednesday’s announcement is the latest effort by cable Internet providers to
focus on delivering content that takes advantages of the boost in speed.
Earlier this month, @Home Network
announced a partnership with Real
Networks to develop a new streaming media platform.
The companies said that partnership was the result of customer demands for
more media-rich programming.