03/06/2008, 11:00am, EST
Thursday, March 6thSony working on Apple TV rival, $299 Blu-ray
Sony is developing its own response to the Apple TV, the company's Electronics chief Stan Glasgow has said in a roundtable discssion with Gizmodo. The executive notes that his company is "working very hard" on such a device and suggests that it would not necessarily be tied to the BRAVIA Internet Link feature from the company's HDTV sets, which lets them browse a narrow range of content without a dedicated computer or media device. Glasgow declines to provide most details but hints that access to the PlayStation Network will spread "over the next year" to other devices besides game consoles and may not be limited to gaming-related content.
Most of Sony's focus will remain on Blu-Ray, the official adds, though whether an Apple-like media hub would include it has not been mentioned. The company has no concerns about the end of HD DVD putting an end to price drops and expects a dedicated Blu-ray player to sell for $299 by the end of 2008, reducing the price for the format by at least a quarter of its current $399 benchmark.
"Next year $200 could happen," Glasgow says, also predicting that 2009 is when mass adoption will take place.
The senior staffer also notes that the PlayStation 3 will continue to change throughout its lifetime, receiving storage upgrades and other feature updates as technology advances. The PS3 is often considered Sony's current answer to networked media hubs through its support of media playback from a hard drive as well as streaming over a network from nearby sources.
Filed under: gadgets
Other story tags: sony, blu-ray, PS3, Apple TV
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In Sony's favour, they at least have a hardware/software platform in place with the cell chip/playstation, which puts them a step higher than most CE firms. The question is whether they can re-use that in the same way Apple did with OS X and the ATV.
The AppleTV hasn't done too well so far, but most people who have seen mine have loved the ability to quickly play YouTube clips from the sofa, and spent hours playing back comedy sketches.
Once the rental catalog increases, and particularly if they gain iPlayer support in the UK, it will become a very viable box (I actually find myself using iPlayer to watch TV on the Mac rather than using my cable VoD service, to watch the same programs, simply because it is an ordeal of menus on the cable box versus a quick search).
In the short term - niche market. Long term - it's inevitable we will rent films directly over the net. In the very long term that will be built directly into your set.
They really need to treat it like a Trojan horse. Everybody owns DVDs. Get people to buy it as a replacement of their DVD player, not in addition to it. Blu-ray would be even better. Sony won the HD format wars in large part because they included blu-ray in the PlayStation. It was a way to create an installed base of users who were buying it for other purposes (playing games).
I think the iTunes store would have failed if there hadn't already been an installed base of iPods. And iPods would have failed if you couldn't get your CD music onto them.
Yes, it would cost more to include the optical drive, but it should be much less than buying a stand-alone blu-ray player since Apple TV already includes most of the hardware you need. And if Sony does it and Apple doesn't, it's going to be an uphill battle for Apple TV.