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Sony Admits MP3 Error
inflex writes "In a rare show admission of taking a wrong turn, Sony's officials have admitted that their stance on MP3 players was wrong." While this was pretty obvious to anyone who has ever shopped for a portable MP3 player, it is nice to see Sony admit their shortcoming. Ken Kutaragi puts it best when he says, "We're growing up," and with any luck future devices won't be crippled with silly formats no one uses.
It's nice that they finally admitted it but, in another context, they still have to get rid of DVD Region encoding otherwise it's only rethoric.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Ken Kutaragi puts it best when he says, "We're growing up," and with any luck future devices won't be crippled with silly formats no one uses.
Growing up implies some sort of learning from ones experiences. Is this not the exact same situation as the Sony Betamax debacle? How about my Minidisc NT that broke trying to load my MP3s onto it. When are they going to grow up?
For that matter, Sony is doing it again with the PSP. Please, buy all the products you have bought in the past on our new media format. The irony of Universal Media Disk should not escape anyone. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, realize me for a massive, faceless electronics and media company who has had a drop in overall product quality and customer care.
Yes, I know the main goal in business is to make money and grow, but to do that, you must serve the customer as well. At least, that used to be true.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
But there still is a long way... Ditch proprietary formats also on the hardware side. Bring back the good support you once had (European support is awful) Dont build machines which break down 2 days after the warranty expires and then charge huge sums for repair. And stop being assholes generally...
Chicken and egg? It looks like everyone's pretty much agreed on MP3 as the standard universal compressed audio format. Like VHS, It's good *enough*, and even if it has IP and quality issues, they clearly aren't compelling enough to force seek alternatives because it works *everywhere*, which is what the digital music revolution is really about. (It used to be that app development stopped when the program could do email, now hardware development stops when you can play MP3s and take pictures - go figure!)
If MP3 were the only audio format out there, OGG might have more widespread acceptance as the 'free alternative', but with WMA, AAC, RM ATRAC (whatever) and the other formats that are available, **my** eyes start to glaze over, and I work with computers for a living!
I think OGG needs a sugardaddy -- a sponsor like Linux has with IBM -- someone with bucks that can really take ownership of pushing it into the marketplace by demonstrating its power and versatility. Sony has the position and clout to do that, but there's no way their music division would go for it.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
There's a reason why Sony put Memory Sticks in their devices. It's so that they can *gasp* sell more memory sticks.
Proprietary formats are the way of big business. "You've bought our system, now let us sell you accessories." Anyone who owns a console game system should be well familiar with this. Why can't I use the same memory card on my Gamecube and my PS2? Because they don't want you too. Why are all of the controller ports different and not just simple USB? This is especially glaring as the Xbox is standard USB with a funky plug. Manufactures make the big money selling add-ons or licensing fees from third partys who make add-ons.
Proprietary formats are there to create another license revenue stream for the manufacturer. It's not that OGG isn't popular, it's just that they don't control it. Sony has demonstrated that they would dump MP3 if they could. DRM is there not so that you don't pirate the media contents, but so that the format licensor can legally force it's usage and force payment for said usage.
Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, said he and other Sony employees had been frustrated for years with management SCE are the Playstation people. The Playstation people say "Sony screwed up". The Walkman people are probably still creaming their pants over how nobody wants MP3 and would prefer ATRAC
How many times must this be said......?
The iPod is not the killer product, iTunes is. All these people hoping for an iPod killer to come along need to remember that the software you use to interface to the thing is far more important than any other factor. Previously I had a NetMD and quite apart from the fact that it didn't play MP3, the software was ghastly. Sure I could import stuff from other formats and the likes but it was so clumsy compared with iTunes. When I got my Mac I tried to use my NetMD with it but of course Sony didn't provide any software support. What little open source software existed for it was restricted to seeing the tracks and starting and stopping it. You couldn't actually record onto the thing with it. Typical Sony. So I sold it on Ebay and put the money towards an iPod. End result, much happier but also I realised just how great iTunes is, it completes the iPod.
I think for a true iPod competitor to come along it is either going to have to have some seriously nice software backed up by a great music store, or it should just work with iTunes.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
> give consumers what consumers want, not what you want consumers to want
I was living/working in Japan in the early '90s, and it was common to hear how Sony took great pains to listen to students, artists, housewives, etc. as to what they wanted - in time, of course, that approach changed when Sony got into the entertainment industry. The believed the phrase 'content is king' and jumped in with both feet.
This marriage resulted in the kind of mindset within Sony that we all know and loath in the US...that of the music industry wanting to keep the 'album' as a metric - bleeding the customer again and again and again. CD's will mean lower cost...right...
Sony can try to go back, but other companies have the lead. I admired Sony until I got to Japan and found out the locals don't think much of the company, actually....too western thinking for the average Japanese consumer.
Today, the record/entertainment industry is the one bleeding, and Sony only has itself to blame for being in the same boat. Sony execs may cut those ties, but they can never wash the blood off of their hands.
Actually this is a pretty interesting comment because the first portion of the comment is kinda of the antithesis of Sony. There is some fascinating literature about how Sony went about creating the Walkman never listening to what really consumers said they wanted. The key thought being that consumers never know what they want. This kinda of flag is great to have when you busting through into a new market, witness the Walkman itself, but suicide when your going into a very mature market. This is where Sony stumbled. If this were 1998 again and Sony was facing off against the first solid-state MP3 player (the Rio from Diamond Multimedia for you history buffs) then it may well of had an excellent chance of succeeding. However, since this MP3 player came out six years after the fact it was DOA. Policy and thought must be flexible, if it is not then you risk something far worse then Sony faced, obsolences and bankruptcy.
Second, there is a reason the number of conglomerates is very small (when I say conglomerates I mean companies that have business that vary widely from each other) for instance Sony who makes tape drives but also produces feature films. Too many hands in the cookie jar and too much politics across the business units. If Sony Electronics was its own seperate entity then I would wager there would be no such thing as an iPod because Sony would have cornered the market and we would all have Sony MP3 players.
No, because even if it's USB, the device can still either be PS2-compatible (for instance) or not, and advertised as such.
... that's no better/worse than the plug just not fitting in the first place.
The plug might fit and the device might not work
And if the memory cards were all, say, CF, what would be the problem? It's a known spec, and easy to accomodate.
Did anyone else notice how much stage time the President of Sony got during the Stevenote? Not only was he up there a loooong time but he was gushing like a little school girl in love. The Reality Distortion Field was on full blast and Steve had it pointing right at Sony's president.
I suspect there was much more that went on behind the scenes that week that will unfold over the course of the year.
Despite Steve's claim that this is the year of High Definition we all know that HD is not his focus.
How long has he been telling us that Apple doesn't want to make a $500 dollar Mac while secretly designing it for the past year?
How many times did he tell us that flash based MP3 players were a waste until he had one of his own?
How many times did he badmouth PDAs which he later admitted he had developed but decided not to ship?
My intuition tells me that one or more of the following will happen this year...
1) Sony will license FairPlay
2) Sony will start selling Sony banded iPods
3) Sony will make its own music player which uses the iPod OS
4) Sony and Apple will jointly develop new digital lifestyle products
5) Sony will become a Mac OS X licensee(eliminates the single source argument)