Once there was a company, a company which completely dominated the electronics landscape, a company which was the pioneer of portable music and gave us the Walkman. For a company with such strong pedigree, we have really not seen any gadget which has redefined the post-2000 world from Sony Electronics. Sony still enjoys a lot of respect and love in the gaming console market, but companies such as Apple have completely taken away their share in the portable music player and are threatening their mobile phone business. Sony is keen to catch up with its rivals and plans to release a new family of handheld devices to meet that goal. It will be interesting to see if Sony’s new efforts would be enough to tempt the Apple users to switch to Sony.
Portable gaming took a major leap with the release of Sony PlayStation Portable. We had devices like the Nintendo Gameboy and the Nintendo DS but the Sony PSP brought console-quality graphics into your hands. It was doing well until the dual-pronged attack of the DS and the iPod touch. The Apple iPod had already hurt Sony by conquering the music market, but its capability to play games was welcomed by consumers. Since then, Sony has reported a major drop in PSP sales.
To address these threats, Sony is apparently releasing a smartphone. This smartphone will have the PlayStation brand and will be able to run PlayStation titles. Sony’s CFO earlier expressed his company’s wish to enter the tablet market, and quite predictably the second device to come is a tablet. According to “people familiar with this matter” who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, the tablet will be a combination of a netbook, an ebook reader and a portable gaming machine – so pretty much everything that the Apple iPad will offer. With this device, Sony will be leading the battle against the Apple iPad, which was not quite well received by critics. Although these reports have not been confirmed by Sony, they look to be more or less true. Sony’s lack of publicity is a major hindrance to the success of its products and they need to pick up a tip or two from Apple in generating hype.
Sony is also due to release its iTunes Store competitor – Sony Online Service. According to Wall Street Journal, the store will offer “many of the same movies, televisions shows and music already available on iTunes.” What sets it apart though is that it will also retail gaming titles of the original PlayStation Console. Sony plans to make it far bigger than iTunes. Sony online Service will have support for all devices ranging from cameras to TVs! This service is slated to release soon.
Sony really needs to make a comeback in the consumer electronics market. It has the added advantage of having a good brand name to its devices and it should make full use of it. Let’s see if Sony’s new offerings will do the company any good. From inventing the Walkman to being reduced to make iPod docks, Sony has surely come a long way.
