Sony promising to make portable video easier
posted Mar 7th 2005 9:08PM
They're still not promising to give us what we really want, like the ability to burn our own UMDs, but Yair Landay, the vice chairman of Sony Pictures, says that in order to make the PlayStation Portable more viable as a multimedia device (and not just as a gaming console), they're going to plug the PSP into their Connect online music download store (which we pretty much already knew and aren't particular excited about anyway), release software for synching the PSP up with both PCs and Macs (which iPSP more or less does now), and start pricing the Memory Stick more competitively (about time!). We don't buy his line about the PSP being the "first entertainment Swiss Army Knife," but he does swear that within the next year or so they're going to start making it much easier in general for users to get video onto their portable devices. Shouldn't actually take a year—all they have to do is not freak out so much about DRM'ing everything to death and/or offer some decently affordable online movie downloads. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Maybe Sony's new American chief can accelerate the product cycle such that the phrase "within a year" is forever banished from the company's vocabulary.
Almost-here isn't good enough for a market that has so many alternatives available right now. Sony needs to adapt to the faster reality of today's consumer-driven landscape.
Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com
#1: I agree with your general sentiment but not with how it's applied here. If there's one thing Howard Stringer's good at, it's dumping stuff that doesn't work. He's made a living at it. In this case, Sony needs to focus quite a bit less on turning the PSP into a multimedia system and quite a bit more on making it the best handheld game machine that it can be. If Howard Stringer's smart, he'll tell those wayward boys at SCE to never, ever, EVER utter the words "swiss army knife" EVER again. In fact, if he's REALLY smart, he'll fire whoever's ass came up with that.
But he needs to refocus this division. This is a division responsible for making game machines, making games, and enticing other developers to make games. That's it. Right now SCE is all over the place and they haven't quite seemed like they know what they want to do with the PSP for some time now. That was fine a year ago when the thing was just announced; it's not fine now. They are still harping on music and movies and other junk that has nothing to do with anything in a portable game system, and it is going to bite them in the ass, and HARD, if they don't stop it.
It hasn't hurt them yet, but once they get over the early adopter rush and people start to figure out that Sony's pushing this dead UMD movie thing and this broken Sony Connect thing and ignoring what this system's really supposed to be FOR, then there are gonna be problems.
In a bit I agree with comment #2. Sony Ericsson is also trying to make their phones (e.g. P9xx series)'Swiss Army knife' of the phone world which could compete directly with the PSP multimedia capability.
On the other hand for the PSP, I think Sony should make a 4Gb MS Duo and sell it for $100. Then they should make Connect really work and then extend it to offer movies! I would like to see how Apple will top that.
holy fong - someone at sony actually pays attention! and dambit, I told you so!
http://pspenvy.blogspot.com/2004/12/are-memorystick-prices-psps-achilles.html
crushing memorystick prices sooner rather than later would do more to advance the cause of the PSP than anything else. if anyone can do it, boss stringer can.
when the board axes the waffling visionary and brings in an operations wonk, you are guaranteed to see laser-tight focus execution against fewer, better-defined strategies. hold on, boys and girls, it's going to be a wild year for the PSP - boss stringer has got a fresh horse and nothing between him and total market dominance, if he plays his cards right.
If they could sell a 4gb stick for $100 (which they can't) I would sell my iPod and my Canon digital camera and replace them with a PSP and T-33 Camera, not to mention buy at least 2 4gb cards.
I disagree that PSP is going to be bitten HARD for not concentrating on the game aspects. They are going to sell 1 million on March 24 and who knows how many more on the already announced blockbluster titles Gran Turismo Mobile and Grand Theft Auto, not to mention Madden 2006.
If I just wanted games I would by a Gameboy. I want to listen to MP3s, view photos, cruise the web, watch movies, and play games...on one machine. That would be suhhhweet. Getting all of those things to work right is the only way they are going to sell 50 million of those things.
Portable Movie Downloads? Who'd pay for junk like that?
#1. You've got to download them (anywhere from 6 to 20 hours)
#2. They are in Low Quality, highly compressed video.
#3. No Extras!
#4. They'll probably charge you the same cost as a DVD!
Why on earth would ANYBODY pay for a downloaded movie? They are barely worth downloading when they are free. I can get a High-Quality DVD in less then an hour of almost any movie I want, with extras, already burned on a nice DVD, usually for $10, that I can then transcode to any other kind of media I want. Given, transcoding is long, slow, and painful. But I bet I can buy and transcode in a movie onto a PSP in less then half the time you can download that same movie on a T1 Line!
Schedule for Memory Stick Price Crushing:
Approximately the exact second that all Early Adopters have been milked of their last green drop.
So.. uh.. please.. everyone... go buy more! Quickly! Schnell!
You'll need something along the lines of the Sony PEGA-VR100K -- the snappily titled MemoryStick video recorder. It was designed with the Clie in mind, but records in MPEG4, so should work with the PSP.
Here's a link to a review with some sample files:
http://www.ottaky.com/vr100k.php
Now if only my Sky+ PVR had a MemoryStick slot...
-They’re still not promising to give us what we really want, like the ability to burn our own UMDs
Why do you keep asking to be able to burn your own UMD's? Sony isn't that stupid. Sony knows people are asking for this to burn games. The same thing people have been doing with the PS1 and PS2. Yes, some of you want to burn homebrew games and movies but you know most will want to burn stolen games.
1 year? Oh please! You've got to be kidding me.
That's exactly the attitude that makes me hold off on shelling out some big bucks for the PSP/DS plus accessories and games. I expect them to give me a finished and polished product. Not some half-assed attempt at a product.
And why, for crying out loud, is it so hard for them to listen to their target demographic? Video playback is a nice little gimmick. But that's pretty much it. It's not a major feature. Nobody is going to buy a PSP for its' video playback capabilities. If I had a need to watch a lot of DVDs on the move, I can get a portable DVD player with a bigger display at Walmart for less money, and far less hassle. I most certainly will not pay to watch a movie I already own on DVD on a small screen by myself.
And, honestly, when do they expect us to watch whole movies on our PSPs?
On my way to work? No, thanks. I'm driving plus I have a DVD player in the car. And even if I was taking the train/bus/whatever form of public transportation to work, I certainly wouldn't want to watch 20 minutes of my movie on my way to work, 20 minutes during lunch and 20 minutes on my way back home. Nobody does that!
On a plane? Well, I have in-flight-entertainment there.
At home? At a friend's house? Nope. DVD players are, what, $39 a pop these days. I honestly think I know a single person who doesn't own at least one.
Thank you very much, I don't need movie playback and, frankly, I don't think anyone is actually going to pay for their DRM'd movies. I'd rather see them focussing on game development and Internet integration (gimme a stinkin', working webbrowser for crying out loud!).
I kinda agree with what you said, but you gotta understand them too I guess. If you created something that is so great than somebody stole, duplicated and sold it really cheap in the market, how would you feel?
but again, I'm sure those peeps in HK will crack it sooner or later.. so yea it's better for them to let us burn the UMD now rather than later allowing us because somebody has cracked their UMD.
Agreed. Right now, UMD as a conveyer of movies is fairly lame. Expecially when they are charging MORE for UMD movies than the regular, higher quality, feature-packed DVDs. Because, y'know, we all want to spend more for less.
How big is Sony's UMD library right now, anyway? Like 50 titles, including such masterpieces like "House of the Dead" and "Rambo".
Companies are so obsessed with DRM they're completely missing the boat. Fortunately, Sony's Walkman division is finally getting a clue and releasing devices that can -gasp- play MP3s. Let's see if the rest of SCEA gets on that cluetrain.
[quote]
And even if I was taking the train/bus/whatever form of public transportation to work, I certainly wouldn't want to watch 20 minutes of my movie on my way to work, 20 minutes during lunch and 20 minutes on my way back home. Nobody does that!
[/quote]
Don't forget to think about the people that would like to watch a Seinfeld/Friends/Ali G/etc. episode while sitting in the train for 30 minutes. Be careful about dictating what "nobody" does, speak for yourself ;)
"cruise the web" "(gimme a stinkin', working webbrowser for crying out loud!)."
Why the emphasis on web surfing via the PSP ? I will soon have to part with my beloved Zaurus SL-5500 which I used for minor web surfing and short e-mails while traveling (and of course for it's Kismet capabilities >:) ), and even that was pushing it. The thumboard made it worth doing, but just barely...I wouldn't have bothered if it only had a pickboard. In fact, the main reason I'm even getting rid of it is that I now have a Jornada 720 with A LARGER KEYBOARD (though it's still elfin and non-touch-typable). I had a short stint with an upgraded Mobilpro 780 which had a nearly full size keyboard (which was great), but was ultimately too big to lug around.
But these three devices had keyboards of SOME type. How effectively can you really surf w/out one ? Or write email ?
Consider also that the PSP does not have a touch screen, so even a pickboard is not possible...you'll need a sequential (or maybe a qwerty grid type layout) list of letters and have to select them via the 'D' buttons.
I can certainly see READING your e-mail on a psp being reasonable, and maybe handheld friendly news sights that you could just store short cuts to and then view...but general surfing seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth.
I still think it's a desireable feature simply for it's cool "look what I can do" factor...
The sad thing is, I can see the play-yan (or even better, the Lik-Sang 3rd party movie player) for the GBA/DS family being almost as useful/popular for movies if the quality of playback is not too abysmal (never seen = don't know).
First off...it's OPTIONAL, if you don't want to watch movies you don't have to buy it, with the PSP you're buying that function whether you want it or not. Second, it's solid state...no disc to skip, less battery drain. Third, it comes with software for converting movies YOU ALREADY have/own/stole.
True, if you have to buy a GBA + Play-Yan + 1 gb CF (at roughly $100+$80+$80 = $260) you're spending a little more than the projected price of the PSP on initial purchase. But you make up the difference within one UMD movie purchase...from there it's all gravy.
And if your buy the Lik-sang 3rd party movie device instead of Play-Yan it's $55 bucks less...
Just my personal slant...