Sony planning to go against iTunes, Live in 2008

Exciting!

Sony....what the hell?? Can you focus on one thing right now please....you've barely got the PS3 on solid footing and your talking about going into the digital music distribution business...as much as I hate Apples and Itunes...I think they are pretty much the ones to beat there....and unless u got sum new fangled mp3/smartphone....I doubt that you're taking their crown...sorry I'm not sure the PSP is that great of a MP3 player...anyway Sony let's get focused at the task at hand....

That guy looks like tom hanks...

that guy is tom hanks

The quicker we get to 'all' content being on 'all' services the better. Digital distribution of movies and music is a big thing, yeah, but it still hasn't arrived full force. The more big names that launch their own services the better for all of us, because eventually exclusive content will be no more, and the only difference will be which service has the right prices and right functionality/features.

I seriously doubt it's going to be Sony-only stuff too. I'm sure movie/tv studios and records labels know what PlayStation is, and aren't going to sit around debating whether or not they should make the content(read: files) they already have sitting on servers made available on Sony's or not.

What a coincidence that it falls on April Fool's Day! XD

This is intriguing.

The heads of Sony Electronics, Sony BMG, Sony Pictures, and Sony Playstation all sitting around one table?

I know this story! They finally put their arguments aside for the betterment of all parties involved, then send the hobbit to Mordor.

This is about to get epic, I tells yah.

Is that Tom Hanks!?

That about the extent of my interest in this.

Editors, please delete this rubbish!

Didn't Microsoft and Apple make the same claims the last couple of years? You loving your Apple TV, no? How is Live working on your mobile phone, not on it yet? Pie in the Sky dreams that may come true one day. Sony needs to perfect PSN first. How is Home working for you, not out yet? Well, how is the open beta, also not out yet? Well at least you got the Little Big Planet Beta, oh not out yet either?
Work on the foundation PSN first Sony.

wow, i just woke up, and i feel great, and now all of sony and alike are having mobster type meetings, and planing to kicksome azz next year, and tupac with a tom hank davinci code mask on, this cant get better, but it will.

I think it's great. Get the power of Sony BMG and Sony Pictures together with Sony Computer Entertainment? That's some powerhouse there.

Nick, Andrew, Jem...someone.

Can you PLEASE somehow block the characters 'spymac' all in one line....and throw in an IP ban at the same time.

Cheers.

Life is like a box of playstation.

LoL let the games begin!!! Let's see if this pans out!!

This will be great competition come 2008 and beyond.

Thank you kspray. I'm so sick of seeing those spymac links and the people who link them that say nothing whatsoever concerning the story.

Sony has always been in an excellent position to actually excel in this area, its just been an incredible amount of stupid management decisions that has prevented Sony from excelling in online media distribution. There is NO other company on the planet that makes the consumer electronics AND the content that goes on them, and even if Sony only sells their own label, its a large library of top artists and movies. What Sony lacks is a compitant software division (outside SCEA), one that can make an online service work well and not seem like the afterthough that most of Sony's software services have been over the last decade. I might be in love with the PS3, but when it comes to Sony in this area, I will be its harshest critic. There is no excuse that Sony could not create the Walkman of the MP3 era (the device everybody wants), or the appropriate online services to support that digital walkman. Apple did everything right in the iPod and iTunes, Sony needs to swallow their pride a little and realize they have been beat and just worry about offering a good competitive service rather then thinking they are going to take over this market.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Sony is so funny.
They have already tried to compete with iTunes and failed miserably. I still have nightmares of their "Connect" software (from my nwhd3). They put a little bit of tidbits out there about an iTunes alternative and all the people on this site piss themselves. I am sorry, I have been a frequenter of this site for some time and I must say all of the responses are from brainwashed, will die before they admit Sony has ever erred turds (well not all of you). Please think critically here -- the likelihood of Sony creating a viable alternative to iTunes is like Sony creating a viable alternative to Live (in other words its just not going to happen any time soon -- if ever!). Now before you get defensive and say I am just an xbox fanboy, please note. I own all three systems (albiet I don't have much time to play them) and I have numerous games for each. I am telling you from an UNBIASED perspective, not to hold your breath here ... you will be disappointed. Oh and please refrain from comments in the same vein as "Sony is right because they are Sony". It really damages your cause.

I see your point postscript but dont forget, Live didnt just pop up magically overnight either, that was 4 years and billions of dollars int he making....all for what? a glorified P2P network.

Now dont get me wrong i LOVE live, and i hope (HOPE) Sony can come out with something to combat it, but even at this point with allt he ads on live and transactions to do ANYTHING (I need to pay for gamerpics?) you would think at this point they could waive the $50 a year fee.

So it is my hope that sony can get on the ball and do all the things their claiming because then, more competition in that arena... means more innovation and better overall usage for US, the consumers.

I mean whatever sony is gonna do, ISNT going to happen overnight and MS DID have a 5-6 year start on a unified service over them, But if Sony and its differing units can come together, i have no doubt they can come out with a GOOD networking service, and provide good content.

My My bets are on a February 31st release.

It's good to see that all the different divisions of Sony communicating with each other. They needed to intermingle all aspects of the company like yesterday. They've always had a problem of the left hand not knowing what the right one was doing, hopefully this won't be the case anymore. This is good news to hear.

Sony is making vague promises about something big for during the next year, but not giving any details or firm timelines? Wow, who would've guessed.

Seriously, this could mean that some very good long-term news is coming out for the PS3 next year... but I'll wait to see some actual results before getting excited.

(PS: Didn't we hear just a little while ago that PS3 is a gaming machine first and foremost? Whatever happened to that sales pitch?)

great Sony. you have the vision, now run with it. no more broken promises umm kay? i dont know how much more my heart can take.

Talk is cheap.

It's gotta be part of Home I bet!

Hahahaha.

This seems to me much hype about nothing.

1) Sony is a HUGE corporation, and it seems so huge that they don't work together. The CEO was all excited because the heads of the different divisions sat down together. Big deal. It sounded like it was the first time they had ever chatted as a group.

2) April 2008 is NOT the date for some phone release. It's simply the date that the next "3 year plan" will start. And it'll likely be as successful as Soviet era "5 year plans", if the reality-to-hype ratio of the last 2 years is repeated.

3) Media to be sold on PSN? I don't see that changing the world much, even for us Playstation owners. Sony has had the Connect service for years, and they've also sold MP3 players for years. I have nothing against selling media on PSN, but it's not going to convert me to buying songs to play on my PSP, or movies to watch on my PS3. (I do think that PSN needs to get some HD movies for sale on-line simply to compete with the similar XBox Live feature. But any movie I actually care about I want to watch on BD anyway....) Sony DOES need to make sure that any purchased video content can be viewed on both the PS3 AND the PSP. MS will surely add this feature to XBox Live at some point (i.e. XBox360 and Zune viewing the same videos).

Hey, I love my PS3 and PSP. And I actually use the media features of these devices as much as I play games (or more). But, I just can't get too excited based on this story...

They have so much potential. Why they can't pull it together is beyond me. Microsoft would kill to have the sort of market coverage that sony, as a whole, now has.

At the end of the day the solution needs to be 'open' to allow other devices to receive this content. Sure it would be great to download all this content to your ps3, but what then? how do all the people with Ipods take advantage?

Wouldn't it be great if all the companies just got along... but thats not gonna happen.

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