Up until recent years, handheld game consoles had one and only one purpose - The ability to play games on the move. This of course has changed considerably when Sony released its PSP when they tried turning it into a multimedia device also from the very beginning, such as provide the ability to also play movies, listen to music and more recently, surf the Internet. Despite selling 4.6 million PSP's in the US since its launch a year and a half ago, they are struggling to get much success offering anything but games for the PSP. For example, their UMD movie format for the PSP initially took off quite well, but just about a year later, it quickly turned into a failing format, followed by retail
stores and studios dropping the UMD format for movies altogether.
More
recently, Sony announced plans to launch a download service targeted at PSP
owners to allow consumers to purchase music and movies for playback on the
PSP. Their aim this time is to stay ahead of Microsoft's upcoming
Zune and hopefully battle the iPod market too. As with the culprit behind delaying
the Blu-ray format, copy protection (DRM) is Sony's main issue with developing its download service. At present they are still trying to work out a means of securing content to a memory stick in order to offer a similar system to that of iTunes. After that, they have yet to decide on whether to offer its music & video content directly through its own online service, via its existing Connect service or through a third party provider.
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'A big issue for us has been the (Digital Rights Management) and how we can secure that content to the Memory Stick," Koller said. They're working on a system similar to what Apple has employed for its iTunes service. After the issue of DRM is figured out, Sony will have to determine how best to make the content available to PSP owners, be it Sony's own online service, Connect, or a third-party service. |
The PSP is one console where Sony seems to be really trying to compete against all forms of handheld entertainment, with obviously the games market being their prime target. However, after unsuccessfully putting much of a dent in Apple's iPod market with its Walkman digital music player series, it looks like they will aim to use its current 4.6 million PSP market in order to launch a music & video download service to compete with iTunes. From what I can see, they are probably targeting the wrong market, since most PSP owners would have bought the PSP primarily for playing video games and already have something more compact (like an iPod) for playing music (and video) on the move.
Source: Journal Gazette
