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[sonycowboy]

http://www.brandrepublic.com/digitalbulletin/news_story.cfm?articleID=233285&Origin=DB26012005

Sony hits back at Apple iTunes with music download site

Mark Sweney and Ben Carter, Marketing 08:30 25-01-2005

LONDON - Sony is to take on the dominance of Apple's iTunes by setting up a global music download service under its PlayStation brand.

The service, which is being developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, will enable music to be downloaded direct to the PlayStation Portable, Sony's first entry into the handheld gaming market, which launches in the UK in March.

Marketing has learned that the download platform will initially be used as a marketing tool to offer PSP users free additional game levels and upgrades.

However, it is also being developed as a download vehicle for other potential Sony products, with a paid-for music service set to launch in the UK this summer.

Game downloads for the PSP will be free and will feature as a critical selling point in advertising. A micro-payment system is in development for the music download service.

At the end of last week Sony was forced to warn investors that profits had slumped following intense competition. The electronics giant is now pinning its revival on establishing PSP as a rival to Apple's iTunes and iPod.

 

[Koshiro]

They picked the right place to do it, we'll take it up the ass and smile while doing so.

 

[Vark]

The electronics giant is now pinning its revival on establishing PSP as a rival to Apple's iTunes and iPod.

Something tells me thats not such a good idea.

 

[neptunes]

If thats the case they're going to have release bigger capacity DUO sticks and lower the prices of the current ones.

 

[sonycowboy]

Something tells me thats not such a good idea.

That's analyst's babble. Not that the PSP won't do well, but with handheld attach rates and the probable loss on unit sales, it's not going to be contribuiting to the bottom line much for quite a while.

I think they're speaking more about trying to be a player in the handheld music player race again, with perhaps the PSP helping to establish them there. Although, they're going to have to have music only players that won't have anything to do with the Playstation brand to really gain any sort of foothold.

Even if they sell 50M PSP's, only a fraction will be using it significantly as a music player vs dedicated devices such as the iPod.

 

[open_mouth_]

It's over. Sony is focusing on "mini transactions" at the expense of quality games for the PSP. Sony, Keep your eye on Nintendo, not Apple.

 

[Elios83]

That's analyst's babble. Not that the PSP won't do well, but with handheld attach rates and the probable loss on unit sales, it's not going to be contribuiting to the bottom line much for quite a while.

I think they're speaking more about trying to be a player in the handheld music player race again, with perhaps the PSP helping to establish them there. Although, they're going to have to have music only players that won't have anything to do with the Playstation brand to really gain any sort of foothold.

Even if they sell 50M PSP's, only a fraction will be using it significantly as a music player vs dedicated devices such as the iPod.

Kutaragi said that already by March the PSP business could be profitable since with a bigger userbase also much bigger profits come from software.And personally I don't think the loss they take on the PSP hardware is nearly as big as many think.
For the PSP vs Ipod situation I think Sony is a bit desperate in its portable audio sector.
They have realized that Ipod is now a trend,even if they manage to build a technically better product it will be very difficult to beat Apple in this market condition.So they fight a trend with an other trend,the Playstation brand.

 

[Slayven]

It's over. Sony is focusing on "mini transactions" at the expense of quality games for the PSP. Sony, Keep your eye on Nintendo, not Apple.

I thought that is what 3rd partys are for.

 

[sonycowboy]

It's over. Sony is focusing on "mini transactions" at the expense of quality games for the PSP. Sony, Keep your eye on Nintendo, not Apple.

Thanks for that, oh so insightful analysis. And your ability to boil it all down to such succinct conclusions. Bravo!

 

[Forsete]

Thanks for that, oh so insightful analysis. And your ability to boil it all down to such succinct conclusions. Bravo!

I hear Reuters is looking for an AAA quality analyst.

 

[open_mouth_]

I hear Reuters is looking for an AAA quality analyst.

Resume... sent.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

It's nice that the PSP will support a music service, but Sony really needs to get a better handheld music player for this to be of any importance. I've got my PSP pre-ordered and I doubt I'll ever play music on it. I've got a much smaller, much higher capacity MP3 player for that already. I want the PSP to play games, so I'd rather they focus on a wireless online game network for us to play on instead, but the iPod has stolen a lot of their core market, and the iTunes store is clearly making a lot of noise as well, but for Apple, the music store is just another way to sell more iPods and support them after the sale. Keep cusomters around. In another year or so, there will probably be a few major shake downs in the whole online music store craze.

 

[kaching]

So is this going to be separate from Sony's Connect service?

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

So is this going to be separate from Sony's Connect service?

I wondered about that too. I thought they already had an online music store, and it seems silly if this doesn't just bring the Connect Service to the PSP. Why would they have two seperate systems?

 

[neptunes]

I think that's just what it is, sony connect

Has connect launched in Europe yet?

 

[Deg]

Sony's multimedia side is a mess. Those memory sticks are also too high a price. No wonder they are never used.

 

[kaching]

I think that's just what it is, sony connect

Has connect launched in Europe yet?

Dunno, but why would it be SCEE doing the development for it when its been Sony Music that owns Connect thus far. I could see SCEE getting involved in a joint effort to update Connect's offerings to include PSP, but not doing it on their own, as this article suggests. Sounds like they're doing something separate.

 

[BuddyC]

You know, I'm really intrigued by the idea of, say, sitting at a coffee shop, hearing a song on the radio, purchasing the album on my PSP and listening to it on the way home. There's some really cool potential there.

 

[Suikoguy]

You know, I'm really intrigued by the idea of, say, sitting at a coffee shop, hearing a song on the radio, purchasing the album on my PSP and listening to it on the way home. There's some really cool potential there.

I never thought of it that way, and its seriously possible.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

You know, I'm really intrigued by the idea of, say, sitting at a coffee shop, hearing a song on the radio, purchasing the album on my PSP and listening to it on the way home. There's some really cool potential there.

Actually a very interesting point. The wireless capabilities of the PSP do add an added dismension to the online music store.

 

[Link316]

I want music videos

 

[Dsal]

Any music delivery system is rendered useless because the PSP totally sucks ass as a music player. You can't even create playlists or use playlists. You have a one folder level max limitation on the memory stick, so good luck trying to organize your music much. And finally, the mem sticks themselves are not a cost effective storage solution: only a paltry 1 gig of possible capacity max so far and that's an extra 120 bucks at least, let alone the bricks-n-mortar prices hovering around 200 bucks for them.

There will have to be a major firmware upgrade and a major drop in price of mem sticks for PSP to be a viable music platform.

 

[BuddyC]

You can't even create playlists or use playlists

False. It supports .m3u playlists just fine.

 

[Jotaro]

What audio codec will it use?

 

[kaching]

Jotaro - would have to be ATRAC for downloading "legitimate" music tracks. PSP supports MP3 and ATRAC but MP3 isn't secure.

Any music delivery system is rendered useless because the PSP totally sucks ass as a music player. You can't even create playlists or use playlists. You have a one folder level max limitation on the memory stick, so good luck trying to organize your music much. And finally, the mem sticks themselves are not a cost effective storage solution: only a paltry 1 gig of possible capacity max so far and that's an extra 120 bucks at least, let alone the bricks-n-mortar prices hovering around 200 bucks for them.

There will have to be a major firmware upgrade and a major drop in price of mem sticks for PSP to be a viable music platform.

You're wrong about using playlists as Buddy points out and none of what you describe is really a barrier to the scenario Buddy described anyway. PSP doesn't need to be a particularly robust mp3 player to enable Buddy's scenario of spontaneous music downloads, it mostly needs to be a decent vessel for storing those downloads securely. The average person isn't going to want to be burying spontaneous downloads deep within a heavily nested folder structure and the amount of songs they could fit in what will probably be no more than a gig of space won't necessarily warrant that anyway. If you download content directly onto your PSP, you're probably going to want instant access to it, so organization isn't the immediate concern. You can deal with that later when you get home and have access to the PC.

What are more likely to be barriers to the scenario Buddy described are the ATRAC format for music and the accessibility of Wifi hotspots away from home. Too many wifi hotspots are simply not free or not accessible easily. Its a situation that needs to change, otherwise the prospect of downloading a new song while sipping latte at Starbucks will be stymied by the initial fee required to get on their WLAN, making a one-off, 99 cent song purchase a more expensive investment.

 

[Stinkles]

You can't even create playlists or use playlists

In fact, it even shows album art. this is fundamentally the simplest EVER sony music device. Drag and drop, even sync with iTunes. The shift towards letting people use their content away from having twenty fucking lawyers find ways to protect their content, is a welcome one.

I currently have on a 512 meg stick ($67) five albums and two Kurosawa movies. And Lumines is of course jammed in permanently.

So eat it.

 

[Lord Error]

In fact, it even shows album art.

Yeah, PSP is one of the very few players that reads picture from ID3 tags in MP3s and displays it. Very neat. The only other hardware player I've seen that does that is the very latest colour screen iPod.

 

[Yusaku]

You know, I'm really intrigued by the idea of, say, sitting at a coffee shop, hearing a song on the radio, purchasing the album on my PSP and listening to it on the way home. There's some really cool potential there.

That WOULD be cool. Imagine a Connect browser on PSP that you can browse through WiFi. Maybe even stream music to your PSP through Connect. After all the ATRAC bullshit though I'm not gonna get my hopes up with Sony any digital music.

 

[Defensor]

How could I get album art(in that little square instead of showing "MP3") to show up on my PSP when I have mp3's set up in a folder?

 

[Lord Error]

How could I get album art(in that little square instead of showing "MP3") to show up on my PSP when I have mp3's set up in a folder?

Just have album art image in the MP3 files contained inside the folder. Use some good ID3 tag editor to add image into ID3 tags. I'm not sure if the image has to be embedded into all MP3s in the folder or just one (perhaps first one?), but I have them embedded into all the MP3s in the folder and it shows little image in that "Group" square.

*edit* I just did some testing, and it only shows whatever picture is embedded in the first file on the list. If the first file has no picture embedded, it will show the generic MP3 icon, no matter if all other MP3s in the folder have embedded picture.

 

[soundwave05]

I think at some point there will be a "PSP SP" with a built-in HDD, probably once the components inside the PSP are able to be made even smaller.

But that's probably two years off, by which time Apple will probably have sold a bazillion more i-Pods.

 

[garrickk]

Sony should have put a serial ATA (or some digital connection - maybe even a second USB microplug) and power connection at the bottom of the UMD drive bay. This would allow Hitachi and others to eventually develop a microdrive that could fit into a UMD bay. The drive would be shaped like an optical UMD disc but have small plugs at the bottom.

However, I will mostly likely put an album or two at a time on my PSP memory card (when I get one...). But, being able to buy an 8GB microdrive in a few years might help.

Of course, this online venture will be for all future Sony music/media players, not just the PSP.

 

[Dsal]

I currently have on a 512 meg stick ($67) five albums and two Kurosawa movies. And Lumines is of course jammed in permanently.

So eat it.

I didn't know it supported .m3u, but there's no way to actually make a playlist on the fly however unless there's some other hidden feature I'm missing. I need to be able to queue up a mix of stuff on the fly and good search capabilities.

For my purposes, I need at least 2 gig capacity for it to be a useful player for me since I really like things randomized. I have several TV eps on my 512 so that's even less room leftover for music .

Anyways, we need cheap multigig mem sticks to really make the media functions fly.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Dear Sony,
If anyone is ever to take you seriously in the handheld market, either make those damn UMD rewriteable, or drastically slash the price on those shitty memory sticks. Otherwise, see you in hell after your Music sector drags you under. :lol

Sony's so stupid when it comes to the music biz. It's hard to believe that's kinda what got it all started. But in the face of MP3's unstoppable advance, they backed ATRAC. ATRAC sucks. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They deserve to suffer for being so stubborn. PEACE.

 

[Jotaro]

But in the face of MP3's unstoppable advance, they backed ATRAC. ATRAC sucks.

Humm, maybe because they developed it?

 

[Pimpwerx]

Humm, maybe because they developed it?

But MP3 has been the defacto standard since I was a sophmore in college (1996). Everyone saw this, and whether they developed it or not, they were trying to push a proprietary standard versus a ubiquitious standard. It was just plain stupid. But you're right, they developed it, so they pushed it. That's what they've done multiple times, and sometimes it bites them in the ass. PEACE.

 

[monkeyrun]

How did Sony's Connect d/l service do anyway