The Wall Street Journal tips us off to the obvious: “People familiar with the situation” have indicated Sony’s getting into the video download business. Not really a big surprise considering they’re a studio and they’re selling video Walkmen, PSPs (already announced video service), PS3s, and network-connected televisions.
While that is a good move, it also leaves Sony playing in a highly commoditized market, and its best bet to make money from video downloading is by selling hardware.
It’s yet to be seen just how commoditized video downloads are… Heck NBC (may have) dumped Apple’s iTunes and others like HBO don’t have online offerings (yet). An era of exclusivity could be upon us. Perhaps NBC is reserving content for their upcoming Hulu portal. Additionally, Sony has more leverage as a movie and television studio. Given the whole Blu-ray/HD DVD debacle, I could see Sony limiting their content to their services and hardware.
At the very least, I’m looking forward to Sony beefing up the PS3’s online services – to better compete with Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Marketplace. (Though, I’d also like to see MS mature their 360 video download interface. There’s got to be something better than scrolling through long text lists.)
I’ve heard it said in the past, if Sony can get its act together, it certainly has all the right pieces to the puzzle. Sony owning its own movie and TV content is a big deal.
A former Sony employee tells me they’ve had a hard time getting that act together in *the US* – perhaps that’s why PSP video downloads and PS3 DVR functionality are launching in Europe (first).
I was thinking about Sony just the other day… Beta, DCC, MiniDisc, Blu-Ray
As many successful products as they’ve put out, they’ve also had their share of dogs. Now with Rubin spouting off, they just continue to look bad. I feel for ’em, I really do cause they make good hardware and decent flicks.
(Disclaimer: My cousin is a VP at Sony Pictures)