Sony launches download site for PSP .

[hey69]

Sony hits back at Apple iTunes with music download site
Mark Sweney and Ben Carter, Marketing 08:30 25-01-2005

LONDON - Sony is to take on the dominance of Apple's iTunes by setting up a global music download service under its PlayStation brand.

The service, which is being developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, will enable music to be downloaded direct to the PlayStation Portable, Sony's first entry into the handheld gaming market, which launches in the UK in March.

Marketing has learned that the download platform will initially be used as a marketing tool to offer PSP users free additional game levels and upgrades.

However, it is also being developed as a download vehicle for other potential Sony products, with a paid-for music service set to launch in the UK this summer.

Game downloads for the PSP will be free and will feature as a critical selling point in advertising. A micro-payment system is in development for the music download service.

At the end of last week Sony was forced to warn investors that profits had slumped following intense competition. The electronics giant is now pinning its revival on establishing PSP as a rival to Apple's iTunes and iPod.

 

[rabidrabbit]

First thing they should do is either go pure MP3, or at least allow their ATRAC format to be saved in Memorystick PRO cards (256MB upwards). As now they can only be saved and played from non PRO (16-128MB), MagicGate cards.

128MB card is just too small for a music player to be taken seriously today.

Second thing they should do is lower the Memorystick prices, so that a 1Gig card would be affordable. Today with the price of a 1Gig Memorystick you can buy iPod Shuffle.

I don't see the PSP as a serious contender in digital music players, it's too big compared to iPods and others. Pre-recorded UMD discs could be another story, with some video content. But competing with the small pure music players will be difficult.

 

[MfA]

Since they are going to open up UMD anyway they should bring out a bundle of a PSP with only a HD and a seperate UMD drive. A PSP with a HD would actually be a usefull media player, and could be made smaller. The UMD drive could connect directly to the PSP to upload games, or to the computer to watch media UMDs.

Im sure because of scale they wouldnt have much trouble competing with portable video players on price, a UMD drive would probably be pretty cheap in volume. This would be actually valuable as a multipurpose device, rather than the tacked on music player functionality they are trying to push ...

On second thought, you need online authentication to tie the game to the media-ID to prevent extra copies being made. So it would probably need to be done via the computer ... still if you are going for the same group of people buying iPod's that obviously isnt a huge obstacle.

 

[hey69]

well maybe the point is not to download and LISTEN to mp3's (while maybe nice ) but as a easy download center for music.
you dont have to startup the pc , just quickconnect from your psp to the service, choose your music and download (which you can later on transfer to your pc or mp3 player)
look to mobile phones and ringtones, they sell well cause it's so very very easy to dowload. just a few clicks . it's a billion$ business

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If the system's set up nicely enough, you might hear a tune on the radio, turn on PSP, download over WiFi network and have it straight away. I imagine impulse buying of music would boosts sales quite substantially.

 

[wco81]

If the system's set up nicely enough, you might hear a tune on the radio, turn on PSP, download over WiFi network and have it straight away. I imagine impulse buying of music would boosts sales quite substantially.

That would make some sense but I believe Sony's MP3 players require downloading on a PC first and using Sonic Stage software to load on the actual portable player.

Now the cell phone companies like Vodaphone want to enable impulse downloading of music over their mobile network. They are hoping lightning strikes twice, as it did with ring tones, which are generating billions in revenues.

But they want to charge you at least $2 for a music file? Then maybe charge you airtime and packet surcharges if you go over the quota?

 

[cthellis42]

Hopefully they'll concentrate on what highlights their particular strengths first--game downloads, demos, music videos, etc--and try to build a strong and easy to use platform. They're not going to beat the iPod/iTunes stranglehold simply by "making something," and Sony's last attempts at a music player/online purchasing site have been pretty laughable.

They should first get working what highlights the advantages of the PSP, so it can function as a good marketing tool for the device, and then work at eroding the iTunes lock. But they need to make sure their software and service is FULLY up to the task first and not make a push that would embarrass themselves too early.

 

[wco81]

Most people won't replace an iPod or any other DAP to use the PSP as their main music player. PSP is too big compared to the dedicated players so it won't be good for going to the gym for example.

So it's not likely that a Sony music download service for the PSP will do that well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You've got an iPod, then get a PSP for films and games. You hear a piece of music and want to own it. Sitting in a cafe you can wireless up to a hotspot, access Sony's site, and buy it straight away. Or you wait till you go home and fire up the PC to buy it on iPod.

Eventually, rather than carry two devices around, won't people just go with one? Ithink that's Sony's scheme - a machine that does everything corners the specialst markets by being more convenient.

Plus isn't the DRM issues with iPod? I know some chaps suiing Apple over having to buy an iPod to use iTunes? If Sony's services allows the media to be duped to other platforms (very unlikely though!) it won't be a choice between iPod and PSP, but you can have both, copying over the music for when you go down the gym and don't want a gaming platform while training.

However it could turn into another format wars if you can only download and play onto specific devices. That would be bad and I'd expect Apple to win in such a case simply because they have the momentum.

 

[Fafalada]

Second thing they should do is lower the Memorystick prices, so that a 1Gig card would be affordable.

Well the prices have already been dropping pretty fast (and that's with a global 1GB Duo shortage) - cheapest you can find them now is ~115$, from what I remember in begining of december cheapest I could find were ~170$ or thereabouts.
Still playing catchup to SD pricing of course - but at this rate it could get there in a few months.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Yes, I checked the 1GB memstick prices here, and the lowest seems to be €119 (SanDisk), they've really come down in prices, good

About the DRM issues. Isn't the DRM much stricter with Sony Connect than iTunes?

 

[wco81]

Yeah I definitely understand the appeal of impulse purchase when you're away from home.

If they do enable that, that would give them a leg up on the iPod. For Sony's sake, they need something better than the software they currently use for purchasing and loading music onto their MP3 players.

But actually, the greatest threat to the iPod is mobile phone companies pushing their own download service. More people are likely to have their phones with them all the time than either the PSP or the iPod so they are more likely to be enticed to make impulse purchases of music downloads while away from the home. Supposedly, it would be economically trivial to put in digital music decoding functionality into phones.

But phone companies, which make billions on ring tones (for which they charge somethign like $3), may get greedy and overprice the music downloads.