Sony spokesmen are not saying much about the company's Internet options for PlayStation 2, only that it will not resort to a dial-up Internet service like Sega's and will look only at a much richer broadband connection possibly as early as next year.

In the meantime, game designers are busy dreaming up ways to use the considerable technologies offered by PlayStation 2. Sony is exploring the idea of harnessing its i.Link to permit players to upload digital images of themselves into games, literally placing themselves in the action, said Craig Howe, brand manager for ESPN the Games, a line of virtual sports games made by Konami of America for PlayStation 2. And there is talk that perhaps the new game machine will add voice recognition.

''I think it's going to be a revolutionary experience,'' said Mr. Howe, whose company is making some of the 270 games currently in development for PlayStation 2.

Right now, said Molly Smith, a spokeswoman for Sony Computer Entertainment America, the emphasis is on what Play Station 2 can do today. Under its skin is off-the-shelf computer hardware and Sony's own design. A collaboration between Sony and the Toshiba Corporation produced Play Station 2's custom-built128-bit chip, which Sony calls the ''emotion engine.'' It does much of the heavy lifting, along with a separate graphics processor, calculating game physics so when a musclebound virtual shot-putter heaves a shot, his muscle tension and the flow of contours on his body are convincing. The chip, which calls on 32 megabytes of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), ensures that the same is true for the flight of the shot as it twists and turns through a computer-generated sky.

The technology is impressive, but so far the marketing is not. Sony announced earlier this fall that its goal of delivering a million PlayStation 2 consoles to the North American marketplace today had to be halved because of parts shortages. Besides the initial 500,000 PlayStation 2 units, Sony said it would ship another 100,000 units a week to North America through the holiday season. Sony officials say they are still committed to delivering three million units to North America by the end of March 2001, supplies of the console are expected to be tight when they start to arrive in stores today.

John Woodson, president of the Internet division of Babbage's, a chain of 1,000 video game and computer software stores, said his stores had been taking reservations for the new console since December 1999. ''Our customer base is gamers and they came immediately to us,'' he said, ''telling us that they wanted to be the first to get one.''

When PlayStation 2 went on sale last year in Japan, Sony sold almost one million consoles in the first weekend. All told, Ms. Smith said, more than three million machines have been sold in Japan. And by March, she added, Sony expects to have blanketed the earth with some 10 million PlayStation 2 consoles.