Sega has announced today that they'll begin charging gamers $9.95 a month to play games on their online network starting November 1. Reuters has the beef....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The online arm of Japanese game publisher Sega Corp. (7964.T) said on Tuesday it would begin charging $9.95 a month as of Nov. 1 for unlimited access to its online network for multiplayer video games.

SegaNet allows people with Sega's Dreamcast (news - web sites) video game console to play Internet-enabled games against each other across the network. It was also an Internet service provider, but that service was discontinued in July and customers transferred to EarthLink Inc. (Nasdaq:ELNK - news)

Sega said its most popular Internet game, ``Phantasy Star Online,'' has 300,000 online players.

A Sega spokesman said all of the current users of SegaNet would have to begin paying as of Nov. 1 to continue accessing the service. Existing users were notified of the change on Tuesday.

The spokesman added that because Phantasy Star Online runs on a separate server system from SegaNet, its players will be ''the exception to the rule'' and will not have to pay a monthly fee.

The Dreamcast was also discontinued earlier this year, but Sega still supports and publishes games for the platform, and has also said SegaNet will support online games for Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Xbox (news - web sites) and Nintendo (news - web sites) Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) GameCube, both of which are to launch in the United States in mid-November.

Sega said in a statement the ``new'' SegaNet will include features like instant messaging, game tournaments and member profile pages.