Sony's Expanded PlayStation Network May Debut Spring 2010

[Patron Saint]

http://kotaku.com/5302651/sonys-expa...ut-spring-2010

Sony CEO Howard Stringer and his underlings have been teasing an expanded, product line-wide PlayStation Network for years. That broader service, leaping from the PSP and PlayStation 3 to Sony branded televisions and other gadgets, might hit next year.

According to a Fortune report, it was PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai that said the bigger PlayStation Network should rear its head next Spring. The service is said to make Sony devices "talk to each other efficiently," according to Stringer, that it will make it easier to handle digital camera images, edit video, share content and store whatever it is you download from a Sony device.

Fortune also reports that Sony has designs on making acquisitions that would "accelerate the effort," but plans to "start small" and roll out the new PlayStation Network over time.

[browinie]

Direct link to source.

The real test of Stringer's game plan is a product that doesn't even exist yet, isn't a machine, and has no code name. It is a kind of omnibus web-based software platform that will use the power of the Internet to connect the company's rich library of content and devices, creating a multimedia experience for customers that actually rewards them for buying multiple Sony products and services.

The broad strokes sound a bit like an updated wrinkle on the concept behind the disastrous merger of AOL and Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), but Sony believes it has two advantages that its rivals lacked: it already has a big presence in people's living rooms, and has a template for new Net-based businesses in the form of PlayStation Network, the online service that runs with the game system. The network has 23 million users, and in the U.S. it has been selling TV shows and films as well as music and games. An online service called Life With PlayStation, introduced last year, gives news feeds, weather, and camera feeds from around the world. Another recent product, PlayStation Home, is a virtual world designed to create communities among gamers. The team of engineers that designed PlayStation Network, like dozens of others around the company, now reports to Tim Schaaff, an Apple veteran who Stringer hired as Sony's first head of software development.

Stringer has intimated that the company is in a position to make acquisitions that will accelerate the effort, and Hirai says the first glimpse of the new service should be seen by next spring. "It's now a matter of what all the services need to look like for each device, and coming up with a rollout plan," says Hirai. "It's like city planning here, and we can start small. We don't need to build New York City overnight."

[master_8ball]

I wonder if this will be the beginning of a pay for service network.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

I, seriously, doubt it.

[mrb713]

Hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder if the interface will look any different ?