While the day-to-day pew! pew! of gaming news is left to gaming Web sites and blogs, you can bet that the big dogs like the Wall Street Journal will quickly jump on news about opposition to Apple and its iTunes download services, especially when Sony is a player in the battle.
The article talks about how Sony CEO Howard Stringer looks to take on and beat out Apple’s iTunes with their own video download service. It is said that Sony plans to use the PS3, PSP, and Bravia televisions to let people download television shows and movies much like consumers do with music on their iPods.
A successful video download service could help move more PS3s and PSPs as well as give them a piece the growing video download market, which some analysts say could be a $7 billion market by 2010.
Sony has not commented on plans, but things look to be headed in this direction. They just released a Walkman-branded player that can play movie trailers and videos, as well as music. I spent some time with one of these in Japan (pictured above) and fell in love — they’re great. Sony also just announced the phasing out of their own music download service, Connect, possibly in an effort to refocus on video.
Sony seems to have all the right tools in place. Now they just need to provide an easy to use, affordable service, and they’ll be set.
“We’ve been saying for years that if there’s a company that can marry all this emerging content to products that people want, it’s Sony that’s going to make it happen,” says Parks Associates analyst Mr. Scherf.
Let’s see it, Sony. I’m totally ready to download videos on my PS3. How about you?
[thanks, Necros]
