Sony Loses First Round to Bleem

Bleem, LLC of Los Angeles announced late Friday afternoon that Sony Computer Entertainment of America's request for a temporary restraining order to delay shipment of the bleem! PlayStation emulator for the PC has been denied. The request, filed in San Francisco Federal District Court earlier this week was Sony's first attempt to prevent Bleem from releasing its PlayStation emulator, something Sony sees as infringing on its PlayStation hardware console device and PlayStation gaming software.

Unlike the Connectix Virtual Game Station for G3-based Macintosh PCs, bleem! allows users to enable PC hardware acceleration with many popular PlayStation titles using Direct3D, the 3D graphics API used on Windows 95/98 machines. This gives games a more arcade look - enhancing the graphics significantly from the current PlayStation look. The company has posted a series of screenshots to let gamers discover what its software will do.

"We're very happy with the court's decision," says David Herpolsheimer, head of Sales & Marketing for Bleem, LLC. "We've always held that bleem! will be good for Sony, since it expands the PlayStation's reach to millions of PC gamers. We've always worked to respect the interests of Sony and all PlayStation developers, and have repeatedly reached out to address any legitimate concerns they might have. In spite of Sony's recent actions, our door remains open and we hope Sony will see what industry-insiders and retailers already know: that bleem! can only result in a larger market for PlayStation games, and increased sales of PlayStation software overall."

The company is currently only taking pre-orders of US$24.95 for the software through its website and attracting more users with an unenhanced software only demo version of bleem! With over half a million downloads of the bleem! demo, gamers are awaiting the final version of the software (which ships next week).

"We'd originally intended to ship a few days sooner, but responding to this lawsuit has taken up a lot of time we'd rather have devoted to bleem! and our users." Herpolsheimer said, "We're working around-the-clock to make up for lost time and get bleem! into the hands of anxious customers."