There are a number of websites and tools related to the VoIP industry that already exist, which target the online gaming market. These include communication products that serve gamers, or VoIP embedded directly into online gaming websites and purchased gaming software. This niche represents a tremendous opportunity for promotion and marketing of VoIP products and services.

 

Main Gaming Suppliers

 

Through the Xbox Live network, Microsoft offers gamers an embedded VoIP functionality where players can talk to each other over the Xbox Live IP network during game play. According to a ZDNet News article, Microsoft serves over 750,000 subscription customers who log over 500,000 hours of game play every day. All XBox live games include VoIP functionality, offering a tremendous niche market for VoIP companies to introduce their technology through gaming.

 

Sony was originally at the head of the pack with the Playstation PS2 game station. The PS2 system enabled players to voice chat over the IP network, with popular VoIP enabled games such as “SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals” leading the way. Not only did this game become on of the first VoIP games on the market, but the programmers were also the first to develop very successful software codecs that compressed and decompressed voice traffic using a peer-to-peer approach. Once the game was released, the VoIP industry took notice and used much of the technology in later advancements.

 

Specialized VoIP Gaming Solutions

 

Ventrilo is another VoIP group communication software solution for PCs. The unique quality of Ventrilo is that the programmers have written codec software to incorporate surround sound and sound effects. Ventrilo programmers seek to write software that offers maximum sound quality and minimum CPU usage. Its focus is the gaming community because core gamers highly value their CPU resource consumption. So for this niche market, high voice quality and low CPU demand is a priority.

 

Globe7 is a free software product that allows you to make free PC-to-PC calls. Globe7 is a software product that’s already been integrated into a number of computer games, the SoftPhone, IM software, and a number of website widgets.