From...

January 26, 2000
Web posted at: 1:02 p.m. EST (1802 GMT)

by Tom Spring

(IDG) -- Get it while it's hot: The next Sony PlayStation accessory you buy might not be a game pad, but software called Bleem.

Bleem, much to Sony's chagrin, lets you pop a PlayStation CD into your PC to play Final Fantasy, Tekken 3, or any of 300 Bleem-compatible PlayStation games. Sony's copyright infringement suit against the manufacturer of the same name goes to court in July.

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Bleem is an emulation program that mimics the PlayStation platform on your PC so it can run PlayStation games. The $30 program works on PCs with at least a 166-Mhz Pentium and running Microsoft Windows 95 or 98.

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Here's the catch: Because PlayStation games were never intended to run on a PC, Bleem is prone to performance hiccups. It ran adequately on a Dell OptiPlex PIII-500, but the sound wasn't always in sync with the game action, and the volume warbled periodically.

Compensating for such hiccups are stellar graphics that make your TV seem like a pocket calculator. Bleem has an undisputed knack for making PlayStation games look fantastic on PCs with at least 16MB of VRAM (our tests used an ATI card with 32MB of VRAM). Even 8MB makes a big difference, says David Herpolsheimer, Bleem's chief executive officer and president.

You can download a 20-day evaluation copy of Bleem to test the waters.

David and Goliath go to court

Sony is suing Bleem for copyright infringement and for violating Sony trade secrets. It accuses Bleem of illegally using parts of the PlayStation software in its product. Bleem maintains it legally "reverse engineered" the PlayStation operating platform and doesn't violate Sony's intellectual property rights.

"We play the same software, but the manner in which we play it is completely different," Herpolsheimer says. Judges have declined three Sony requests for a temporary restraining order to halt Bleem sales. Even the judge overseeing the case denied Sony a preliminary injunction.

Sony argues that Bleem plays into the hands of game pirates who are notorious for swapping software on the Web. Also, because Bleem doesn't always work perfectly, an inferior playing experience could tarnish the PlayStation brand, Sony says.

No one is confused about what you get when you buy Bleem, Herpolsheimer says. The product's packaging doesn't guarantee game performance.

"If a Sony game has a bug in it, should Bleem go after Sony for diminishing its brand?" Herpolsheimer says.

Bleem, which has nine full-time employees, counter-claims that the corporate giant Sony has an illegal monopoly in the game console market. Sony has 53 percent of the market, to Nintendo 64's 32 percent and Sega Dreamcast's 15 percent, according to recent market research by NPD Group.

Herpolsheimer says Sony should stop fighting legitimate emulation companies like Bleem.

Emulators, he argues, expand Sony's market beyond the couch potato crowd to PC users and invites millions more to buy PlayStation games. He claims Bleem has sold more than 200,000 copies. And users appreciate the improved image quality of running PlayStation games on PC monitors with higher resolution than TV sets, he notes. What's more, Bleem saves you the $130 cost of a PlayStation console.