Sony PlayStation network moves into reality TV
Wants original, HBO-like content
Sony Computer Entertainment, the folks in charge of the PlayStation game console, are getting into the reality show business.
As it attempts to transition from a gaming company to a full-blown media company, SCE hopes to expand its PlayStation Network online platform into an "actual" TV network not unlike the American premium cable station HBO.
Speaking at iHollywood's Digital Living Room conference in Santa Clara on Tuesday, John Koller - director of marketing PlayStation platforms at SCE America - outlined the company's plans for family hearth domination with the Playstation 3.
"This is an area we're going to be building out — reality shows and other areas that would live within the PlayStation Network, and only PlayStation consumers would be able to download them," Koller said. "We're starting to turn the PlayStation Network into an actual network as defined by what you'd expect from an HBO perspective where new and interesting content constantly breaks through."
Koller said they're using the network as their "north star" for original programming and will launch their first show in the coming months. He added that although the first programs will be catered to gamers, it hopes to see a broader scope if the idea catches on.
Sony also plans to continue pushing PlayStation Home — the PS3's baked-in Second Life-like ungame where users can customize their avatars and wander around a virtual world with other Home users. While Second Life has lost much of its hype in recent years, Sony said Home has proven to a profitable endeavor by letting advertisers into the virtual world and charging users for customization.
"It's amazing to me that someone would by a 50 cent chair for their PlayStation Home apartment with real money, but the revenue that comes from that is significant." ®
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COMMENTS
Sorry this has to be said but...
SONY, please bring back linux support to the masses. Selling these thin PS3s with no otherOS support is a SIN.
To be fair to Apple...
... and I know how unfashionable that is around here...!
WRT music in iTunes, unless the person still has old DRMed purchases from the iTunes store, or has used Apple lossless, their music collection will be in either AAC or MP3 format and therefore not in a proprietary format at all. All the person needs is a new player that plays AAC as well as MP3, of which there are plenty these days. Or do a conversion job (which iTunes will do). Apple lossless can be converted to a lossy format by iTunes, or you can convert it to FLAC using third-party utilities as there is an open source version of the codec..
The proprietary stuff is the DRM, and even then with audio you can either upgrade tracks to iTunes Plus (non-DRMed, but costs - though you get higher quality for your money), or burn to CD and re-rip (with quality loss).
The situation with video is similar in that for your own video iTunes uses standard formats eg H.264 etc that other players can happily play. It's the DRMed stuff from the store that's locked down.
Apple have gone on record as saying that they don't like DRM, it's forced on them by the movie companies and they dumped it as soon as they were let on audio. I suspect they'd do the same for video if the movie companies would let them.
Other than that they use open formats, so while I don't doubt they'd like everyone to stick with Apple kit and software (after all that's how they make their money), it just isn't the case that they lock everyone in with proprietary formats.
Contrast Microsoft with Windows Media and Sony's abortive attempt to push ATRAC3, which really are proprietary.
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