Perhaps the clearest message to emerge from the Tokyo Games Show was that the PlayStation 3’s online service will be an absolutely key element of the next-generation console. Ken Kutaragi acknowledged as much - the vast majority of his keynote speech was devoted to the changing 21^st-century world, in which everyone is connected to and fully conversant with the internet.

However the company might want to spin it, it hasn’t managed to embrace online gaming with any credibility previously - the insistence on not assuming overall control of online gaming (as Microsoft does with its subscription-based, and enormously popular Xbox Live) left the PS2 with a bitty, inconsistent online service. And previous Sony consoles have just been a bit out-of-synch with the online gaming revolution - the PS2 arrived about two years before affordable broadband reached these shores.

However, it can’t be ignored now, and Sony Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison talked us through the experience of what the first proper PlayStation online gaming service will be like. He kicked off with: “As far as the online service is concerned, the key piece of the puzzle that I showed today is the web browser.” Happily, the PS3’s browser is very flash - able to open a number of sites and allow you to flick between them.

The initial interface for the PS3 online service will be the Storefront. Although Harrison said: “The interface for the Store is not yet final, so we didn’t show it today,” Polyphony Digital’s Kazunori Yamauchi did show a screen which pretty much resembles every website goods check-out you’ve ever seen, and it’s safe to presume that’s what the Storefront will look like - give or take a few design tweaks.

Harrision continues: “The basic framework and design is the same everywhere in the world. In that Store, you will find the premium content that you can buy and download, so that could be a full game or a component of an existing game. So there will be a simple click to download; it will verify your wallet and then will checkout and download straight to your hard disk. It could also be a free download of a video or a demo. That will, over time, expand to include PlayStation One games - in fact, from day one, we’ll have PlayStation One-emulation downloadable content, and that will extend in time to PlayStation 2. And as Ken said in his speech, he made a fairly clear statement about library emulation of other consoles as well.” To be precise, he mentioned the Sega Megadrive and the PC Engine.

Harrison provided further insight into the nature of the PS3 online service: “It’s all consolidated to one account: with a single login, a single sign-in, one account, one wallet. Once you’ve logged in - and by the way, once you’ve set up your account, login is automatic if you want it to be; you don’t have to type in your password every time - so if, say, you’re playing Resistance online, you’re actually playing off a set of dedicated Resistance servers. It’s up to the developer or publisher how they want to set those up.”

And the most radical difference to Xbox Live will be the existence of games - like Gran Turismo HD - which require the purchase of box-copy, but only make sense when combined with extra content bought from the Store. As Harrison explains, we shouldn’t expect to spend the time-honoured £40 or £50 on such games: “All of the multiplayer games that we’re planning at the moment are free to play, if you want the multiplayer functionality. We will be offering premium content for additional download for the vast majority of our games. With a game like Gran Turismo, after you’ve bought the game - at whatever price you might pay for it, bear that in mind - you can then expand that experience with additional content that’s downloaded. Some of which might be paid-for, some of which might be included in that purchase price, some of which might be on subscription - there are a number of different ways to slice and dice that.”

Which, not unnaturally, brings up the worry of ending up paying more than £50 for a full gaming experience. Faced with that allegation, Harrison countered thus: “That’s an incorrect understanding of the philosophy that Sony has. I believe that having an integrated, simple click-to-buy micro-transaction method is vital to the expansion of our industry. Think about a game where the disk is given away free of charge, and everything else comes via the network - that is where our direction is with the PS3.”

So, the PS3 will usher in a new world in which you’ll be able to buy, say, your favourite cars for use in Gran Turismo HD, yet ignore the ones you’re not interested in. The system will allow for episodic content, and you won’t have to pay a subscription. It really will be pay-to-play, and if what Harrison says proves to be correct, we should end up paying less for a more tailored online gaming experience.