Sony tries again: online videos
p2pnet news | Movies:- If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again, says the motto.
And that’s exactly what Sony is doing.
Movielink, sold to Blockbuster; was a major flop and the Sony Connect was binned.
Now it says it’s making another stab with an “open standards” online video service, but this time it’s playing safe by using PlayStation 3 as the delivery vehicle.
“The initial version of the service would include movies and television shows flowing from the Internet,” says the Mercury News, going on >>>
“Sony is trying to capitalize on its “Trojan horse” in the living room, the PlayStation 3. The game console is already connected to the TV and the Internet, and has sold more than 4 million units in the United States and 9 million worldwide, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.
The console gave Sony the decisive edge in the battle to establish its Blu-ray discs as the standard for high-definition video in the home, trumping the rival HD DVD format backed by Toshiba, Microsoft and others.
The new service would position the company to compete with the growing number of Internet-connected devices and services that deliver video to the TV, including AppleTV, Vudu and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console.
However, looming darkly in the background Bill and the Boyz with their Xbox Live service and, “10 million subscribers who can sample online more than 4,800 hours of video, a quarter of them in high-definition,” says the Mercury News.
And that includes 350 movies and more than 5,000 episodes of TV shows, “most of which go on sale on Xbox Live the day after their initial broadcast airing”.
Adds the story:
“One of the service’s greatest obstacles may be Sony’s own culture. Sony Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Stringer has been battling a corporate silo mentality in which divisions within his company work in isolation, undermining new initiatives. The PlayStation group, based in Foster City, has been notoriously aloof.
“What is more, the company, looking to safeguard its film, television and music holdings, has been an aggressive champion of copyright protection, often, critics suggest, at the cost of technological innovation.”
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sold to Blockbuster - Blockbuster mulls TV streaming, April 10, 2008
binned - Sony disconnects Sony Connect, June 20, 2007
Mercury News - Sony to give online video distribution another try, April 22, 2008
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April 24th, 2008 at 6:49 am
PirateBay is THE source of movies. Sony is just an imitator.
Didn’t I tell you that you also save some cash on Xbox too?
April 24th, 2008 at 7:57 am
After the rootkit, why would I want another Sony spy in my home. Fact is, after dismal customer service, I long ago gave up on Sony hardware. Today you could not give me anything with the name on it of Sony.
Sony has shown their mentality over and over to me. I got the message. Now Sony can get mine. Not another dollar spent on a company so poorly concerned with their products.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Never again would I buy an anti-consumer Sony product after their aggressive rootkit/DRM/RIAA/Blu-Ray trojan/copy-protection/steal from all/vilify the innocent & ruin their lives/wage war on file sharers & mp3 mentality.
The reason they don’t give a damn about their image and persecute Internet users is that they know if people want music and movies enough they’ll even buy them if they can’t download.
But is that really true after all they’ve done, and when they arrogantly increase prices even further? Real piracy would get an even firmer grip if that were to happen, that people were forced offline, and especially when faced with a choice of a $40-$50 DVD or 60c pirated. CDs would go the same way I feel, and already commercial buyers are departing in droves understandably.