PSN expanding to mobile phones, Sony & Sony Ericsson exploring consistent UI's

[Shin-Ra]

Live from Sony Ericsson's MWC 2010 press conference

Howard Stringer:

8:03PM He's predicting the obsolescence of wallets, keys, and driver's licenses as phones take over on every level. It's a brave new world.

8:04PM Describing the PlayStation Network's 40 million-plus members: "PSN is a not-so-secret weapon."



8:05PM "We are exploring consistent user interfaces against Sony and Sony Ericsson products." Makes sense... almost too much sense.

8:05PM He's also looking to fully expand PSN to phones; video distribution was the example given, but long term, there's no reason to think we couldn't see some cross-platform multiplayer gaming action.

8:06PM "We fully support Bert and his team at Sony Ericsson."

[Petra_Kalbrain]

"He's predicting the obsolescence of wallets, keys, and driver's licenses as phones take over on every level. It's a brave new world."

Uh-oh. Don't know how much I like the sounds of that! That's a giant leap towards having your entire identity encoded into a microchip that gets implanted in your arm and track/controlled by the government.

I'm all for uniting humanity as a species, but not at the cost of letting government faculties have excessive control over our existence within THEIR ideas of what society should be like.

[AranhaHunter]

Don't know what to make of this:

Obviously SE phones won't be able to play all the games on PSN, so what games will be cross platform multiplayer? Minis? Sure they could patch and change it to support touchscreen and you could play it with an X10, but minis are supposed to be sp only to keep the cost (theoretically) down, so will that be changed? Maybe it could be Madden or GTA, afterall those are available for the iphone for $10 bucks, but how will they do that? Will they price it for U$10 for the X10 or will it have one universal price (in which case it'll be overpriced)? I don't see SOCOM FTB and some of those other games being played on an X10, some games just require buttons and they're not gonna patch everything.

SE already has a video on demand distribution on PlayNow, as well as a music store and an app store (things not available on PSN), so will SE cancel PlayNow in support of PSN? Will they move the music and app store and integrate into PSN and cancel PlayNow? Or will SE phones access 2 different online stores (this would be bad and confusing for consumers IMO).

[Maximus]

I would think that Sony will roll everything into PSN and rebrand it. No point in having two competing services owned by the same company running on the same device...

[AranhaHunter]

But isn't PlayNow co owned by Ericsson? They could possibly say no to such a move since they wouldn't get a piece of everything sold

[Maximus]

Since they know which device is doing the streaming I expect there will be a way to fix up how much revenue goes to Ericsson out of any fees.

Anyway, I expect SE to be in the hands of Sony by the end of the next financial year, it will probably keep the name but Ericsson want out and Sony want them out but to keep the new management.

I think Sony finally realise they need to leverage PSN in all possible devices to make them more attractive to consumers.

[AranhaHunter]

That's been rumored before, I belive last March or April that was being thrown around, would make it easier to integrate everything for sure, but the question remains if Sony has the extra cash to make such a purchase feasible, it would probably cost them more than BMG did (which I believe was U$600 million).

[jharv]

I'm assuming this is to compete with XBL now being on Windows Mobile 7 devices? Even though most of Sony's smart-phones use Windows Mobile.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by AranhaHunter

That's been rumored before, I belive last March or April that was being thrown around, would make it easier to integrate everything for sure, but the question remains if Sony has the extra cash to make such a purchase feasible, it would probably cost them more than BMG did (which I believe was U$600 million).

We'll see how much money Sony has in April, but right now it looks like they will have a lot of spare cash as the losses expected are around $3bn and I'm told by many analysts that Sony will make a much smaller loss. Sony have accounted for $3bn on the books so they will have the finance ready, but making less of a loss gives them money to spend on investment.

[jono_0101]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Uh-oh. Don't know how much I like the sounds of that! That's a giant leap towards having your entire identity encoded into a microchip that gets implanted in your arm and track/controlled by the government.

I'm all for uniting humanity as a species, but not at the cost of letting government faculties have excessive control over our existence within THEIR ideas of what society should be like.

dude, they are already working on that, havent you seen the GE commecials for implanted chips that hold all your medical information, and your whereabouts all the time? kinda creepy IMO

[AranhaHunter]

I'm wondering why Sony hasn't released a PSN Store App for android phones, I know they could never release one for itunes because Apple wouldn't allow it but for android it makes perfect sense, it would also make perfect sense if the media go PS Store app would allow one to download movies, comics (and music and books in the future) and play it on their computer instead of just downloading it and copying it to the PSP. Maybe that's down the pipeline.

[Maximus]

No SE phone with Android out yet. Rights agreements wouldn't allow use of content on non-Sony devices unless it has a dialled in connection to PSN rather than a free App.

[AranhaHunter]

Originally Posted by Maximus

No SE phone with Android out yet. Rights agreements wouldn't allow use of content on non-Sony devices unless it has a dialled in connection to PSN rather than a free App.

Oh, didn't know that, but that's what I meant, a free app for android that's not dependent on the manufacturer, so that any android user could dl the app and use the store, too bad the rights agreement strict the use of it to only Sony devices, so that kind of shoots down the possibility of a PSN app for WM7.

[AranhaHunter]

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/21727.cfm

At this week's Mobile World Congress Show Daily, it appears that Sony Ericsson has hinted at the possible creation of a PSP phone.

Says President Bert Nordberg, via electronista: "We missed the window for high-end and touchscreen devices big time. Part of the recovery will be much better design and closer work with our partner Sony... In the past there was no tie-up between us, the PSP platform and Sony, but you can expect to hear much more about that."

There have been many rumors of a "PSP phone" in the past, but not to many have come with basis directly from the mouth of the President of the company.

Should be interesting to keep an eye on.

[xtop]

i still want to know how a psp phone is going to work. will it only play mini's?