Sony will soon begin a series of moves to get into long- and short-form content downloading on a major scale—a new strategy that likely would involve its Bravia-brand HD monitors and other existing Sony digital products, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Several parties, including the major broadcast and cable networks, to varying degrees have begun downloading their own content by themselves or via outside Internet services, but the networks have no CE hardware that can take advantage of receiving downloads, per se, like Sony. Sony’s move would directly challenge such popular download services such as iTunes from Apple.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer is planning to use three of the company’s existing products—notably Bravia HD sets, along with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable game consoles—to allow consumers to download TV shows and motion pictures onto them for viewing.
Such a strategy by Tokyo-based Sony would anticipate continuing improvements in download capacities and video quality, a trend that has been ongoing for several years. “The real key is going to be who is providing the best high-definition experience for viewers,” said Kurt Scherf, an analyst at Park Associates, told the Journal.
