Hollywood Wants Sony To Compete W/Apple
05.07.07 - 09:51am
The Sony Play Station Portable is a beautifully made piece of equipment with a 4.3 inch
screen, 16:9Wide screen TFT LCD that has 489 x 272 pixel, 16.77 million colors - basically its one sweet screen that seems perfect for downloaded movies and TV shows - so why, when Sony had the chance did they not take it and produce downloads? This is the question also being asked by Hollywood executives who are hoping that Sony will step up and become the competition they believe Sony can be and the competition they need Sony to be.
Currently Hollywood is a little worried about the stronghold Apple has over the digital movie and TV download market and it’s no wonder they want a little competition to help give them an edge especially as negotiations loom closer.
Last year iTunes sold 50 million TV shows and James McQuivey, a Forrester Research analyst, says that it could have been Sony, with a barrage of movies made by them and thus at their disposal combined with the PSP that could have been the front runner in this lucrative market rather than Apple. McQuivey said, “The thing is, Sony could have been all this. The Sony PSP is one of the best portable entertainment media devices that anyone has come up with in years. It has a relatively big screen, plays video beautifully, has good storage and audio. It could have been the first big mobile carrier for TV shows and movies.”
Instead Sony decided to go with UMD’s (a small DVD type disc that holds movies and games for the PSP) instead of digital downloads. (They obviously didn’t see where the future of movies was going, or the opportunity at their doorstep.)
The Calgary Sun in reporting on Sony’s UMD’s had this to say in their headline, “Bombs away; UMD sales are zilch with consumers.” Yet in spite of the lackluster sales, combined with Universal and Paramount ending their production of movies in UMD format a year ago March, Sony has yet to come out with a PSP download store. Last December reports surfaced that said they would have a store early in the year, but talk has ceased and Sony has declined to discuss the matter.
Hollywood studios are hoping that Sony hasn’t scrapped the download store idea, since with the PSP already so video capable, they are the best and fastest option to provide competition for the video iPod. They don’t want Steve Jobs to be able to win as big of concessions from the film industry as he has won from the music industry.
One executive speaking anonymously said, “Sony has been so dysfunctional and clueless when it comes to the Internet. We keep hoping they pull themselves together…with the PSP video, we’re hoping they create a forward-thinking strategy and stick to it.”
Fans would also like them to pull it together as Jason Fields, a product evangelist for the internet search engine Snap, says that he would love to transfer some of his iPod video files to his PSP. He said, “It would be brilliant if the PSP supported the iPod. I’m sure even if they don’t, someone could come up with a product or hack that could do it. If they did I would use it and abuse it.”
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