Netflix is looking to expand internationally. I've heard they've hired localization people aggressively around here. Though the studios are going to demand higher and higher licensing fees from them so it'll be interesting to see if it takes off elsewhere.
I think Sony would have had a problem offering a digital music store back in the day because competitors would have been reluctant to make a deal with them. Only an outsider like Apple might have been able to bring all the studios together.
Sony's problem was software. People hated ATRAC not only because it was proprietary at a time when everyone was going MP3 but because it required transcoding and other processing just to load music to their players. I remember reviews pointing out how horrible their software was.
They even poached some guy from Apple to spearhead their software division but apparently nothing came of it.
Now, the digital audio player market has pretty much flatlined and growth is in smart phones. Guess which companies dominate that market. Yes software companies again. Sony Ericsson phones tried to compete with Nokias for high-end camera phones, before the smart phone wave hit, or tried to make pretty designs.
Sony never had the software DNA for the world we're in right now, software and services being the secret sauce for hardware. As soon as electronic products required putting more and more intelligence in them, with a UI to access that intelligence, Sony wasn't going to have a chance.
Even in hardware and industrial design, competitors have caught up. XBR doesn't carry the cachet that it used to (it doesn't help that TV has become a commodity business), as other companies are offering sleek displays. Sony had invested in some exotic display technologies (GLV, SXRD, OLED) but now it's reduced to being one of many vendors of LED-backlit LCDs. They try to sell VAIO laptops at a premium but bottom line, they're just another Windows OEM, which sometimes lead the market for thin, small designs but eventually is caught up -- every PC maker uses the same Chinese/Asian contract manufacturers.
NGP is interesting but it's using industry-standard tech, nothing like the Cell or Blu-Ray. So NGP is going to have to rely on exclusive IP, which are ports of PS3 games. Will that be enough, especially in a world of 99 cent smart phone games?
PS4 will face similar questions. Smart move is not to invest in custom processors or other custom components. But PS2 and PS3 were hyped with the Emotion Engine and the Cell, pushed by Kutaragi's vision of other fanciful uses (Cell Storage, Cell grid, etc) which never came to pass.
But the console business has become more about software now. Sony no longer has the big 3rd-party exclusives and while some of its first-party franchises are well-received critically, they're no longer the dominant system sellers that they were in the PS1 and PS2 days. Beyond game software, software services have become more prominent as consoles have become set tops for playing back digital video and audio. So the software front-end (XMB) and the online presence (PSN) have brought to light Sony's shortcomings in those areas.
Sony will have to prove they can compete on these fronts. Certainly the skeptics are having their day now.
twisted: I kid i kid)
