Namco, Square, Enix Form Online Game Partnership

Namco and Enix will provide online games for Square's upcoming Play Online (POL) service, scheduled to debut next March to coincide with an online Final Fantasy game for Playstation 2. The three firms plan to jointly establish a company to operate POL by the end of this year, although financial terms such as capital and equity ratio are still up in the air, according to a Square spokesman. Representatives of the three companies announced that Sony Computer Entertainment is providing some financial backing to the three companies for the endeavor, as is Japanese telecom giant NTT Communications.