Sony was said to be growing increasingly wary of Apple’s attempts to dominate the mobile devices market. Sony Corp. will start a video- and music-streaming service in five European countries this fall to challenge Apple Inc.’s iTunes store.
Announcing the subscription service at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Sony pronounced “curiosity,” will start in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K., the Tokyo-based company said yesterday. Interestingly the service will be available via Sony’s Bravia TVs, the PlayStation 3 game console, Blu-ray DVD players and Vaio personal computers. Qriocity will draw on Sony’s experience with PlayStation Network and its 54 million subscribers. Unlike Apple’s iTunes, where users download files to their music player, Qriocity is cloud-based, which means customers stream the media through the internet in a similar way to the BBC’s iPlayer or Spotify music services.
Sony is hoping that it can persuade the millions who own its hardware – TVs, Play Station 3 consoles, Blu-Ray players – that there is an alternative to Apple when it comes to getting online access to content. What Sony lacks though is the software muscle that iTunes gives Apple. With 160 million people now registering their credit cards to an iTunes account, there’s a lot of inertia in the digital media market.
“Services ‘powered by Qriocity’ will revolutionize the way that users play, listen, watch, share, communicate, learn, discover and create their digital entertainment content,” Chairman and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai said in a statement. Video and TV on demand services are set to grow rapidly over the next year, with online retailer Amazon expected to play its hand soon.
Apple has a history of entering existing markets and transforming them and it would be interesting to watch how Japanese giant will take on Apple. Sony has a steep hill to climb and a long road to go if they’re going to start seriously competing with iTunes because Apple’s iTunes, celebrated its 10 billionth download earlier this year. They’re going to try very hardly and consumers will get to find out if their model has legs, as well as what other types of portable devices they plan on releasing to support it.
