Square's plans for online gaming go beyond just Final Fantasy XI, and PlayOnline seems to be the company's framework for everything. This portal website installs in part onto your PS2 hard disk and provides you a peek into Square's gaming world, while also serving as the means for your launching the company's online games.

Once you've installed the browser to the hard disk, you no longer need to insert the PlayOnline disk. Launching the PlayOnline browser requires that you select the "Browser" option from the start-up menu of your PS2, select the "Hard Disk" and click on the PlayOnline logo. In case you've never played with a PS2 hard disk, this is one way to launch any hard-disk compatible game.

Connecting to the PlayOnline website takes just a couple of seconds if you have a broadband connection. Your password and registration information is stored on the PS2 hard disk.

The PlayOnline browser has some nice options. Square has advertisements for upcoming games and products on the site; these highly graphical ads suggest that you make a download to your hard disk for optimum performance. There also is a special journal section from composer Nobuo Uematsu who has also been one of the most visible presences on the PC section of PlayOnline. Of course, chatting and e-mail are also included through the site.

The main option people will probably be accessing (aside from the manga section) is the games section. Currently, the games section features just Tetramaster and Final Fantasy XI. By clicking on each game, you can read the latest news on servers, view Online instruction manuals, and, of course, launch the game.

Those who doubted that internet browsing could be done on a console connected to a television should check out Square's PlayOnline browser. Much of the site may be situated on your hard disk, but even when stuff was downloading, wait times were just a couple of seconds. If Square can put some compelling content on the site, Final Fantasy XI players may end up goofing around with PlayOnline as much as they do with the game.