Sony announced that it aims to start equipping its PlayStation2 (PS2) game consoles with Java Virtual Machine (Java VM) by the end of this year.

This will enable PS2 users to run Java programs, including applet and i-Appli Java applications, on their game consoles.

The idea is that eventually Java VM will be preinstalled in the PS2 hard disk drive (HDD) units that SCEI has developed for the console. The first batch of PS2 HDD units is scheduled to go on sale in July.

SCEI said it is considering setting up a service that will allow people who purchase the HDD now, without Java, to download the software for free when it becomes available later. Exactly which version of Java2 is to be adopted is still undecided, but SCEI says that it will probably be one of the more advanced versions, namely Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE) or Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), and not the Java2 Micro Edition (J2ME), which is intended for embedded applications.

Java's popularity has already seen its adoption spread to many different platforms including mobile phones and handheld personal digital assistant (PDA) devices. For example, NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s i-mode phones and Sharp Corp.'s Zaurus range of PDAs -- but SCEI's plan to offer a Java environment on the PS2 is the first case of its use in a videogame console