HARRY POTTER CHAINED to new Sony reader
Boy wizard to levitate gadgets off shelves this Xmas
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Updated Sony will bundle its next generation e-reader with the entire series of Harry Potter stories from November, The Register has learnt.
The bespectacled wizard debuts in digital format in October – the same time as the Sony-sponsored Pottermore "online reading experience" goes live – according to well-placed sources in the vendor's retail channel.
But for richer Potterites who can hang fire for a month, a second bundle will be released including all seven books in the series, a letter from author JK Rowling, subscription to Pottermore and a themed carry case.
Beta testing for Pottermore opened yesterday; in time Potter e-books will be sold via the site (rather than through etailers such as Amazon) but this won't happen until 2012. Until it does, the only way to buy digital-format wizardry will be with a Sony device.
According to the sources, Sony is paying Rowling millions for early electronic rights to Potter, but rather than adding to her fortune, last estimated at £560m, she is handing the proceeds to a charity for children with learning disabilities.
The package is being hailed as the "hero" product – the biggest seller – for Christmas by some in the retail channel.
Sony confirmed that it has another e-reader in the offing but refused to comment on the tie-up with Potter.
"We have not yet released any details about new Sony Readers, including pricing, timing and features. When we do have Sony Reader news, we will share all the details with you," Sony said.
Rowling's representatives declined to confirm any charitable association or other details of the deal. ®
Updated to Add
Ms Rowling's representatives have now (12:30 17 August UK time) been back in touch. They say that in fact Harry Potter e-books will be made available for all platforms simultaneously via the Pottermore website: there will be no period during which it will be available only with the Sony reader, as we had previously understood.
COMMENTS
They just don't get it do they.
If you want to encourage piracy a sure-fire way to do it is to lock your content to a single platform. A platform I might add that is so far behind the Amazon Kindle in take up it's not funny.
What are all the people with kindles going to do? Buy a Sony reader? If anyone seriously believes this to be the case they need committing to a funny farm.
That's nice
I suppose it's better than getting some crappy public domain texts with your new ereader which is the current offer.
At the same time, it should be obvious to everyone that Harry Potter was available in digital format from about 2 seconds after it launched in physical format and with less restrictions. So the publishers have basically lost 3 years of sales to pirates because they couldn't be arsed to produce their own version.
I also expect when it does appear it will enjoy the same piss taking markup that all ebooks suffer from. Perhaps when ebooks appear in a common format (epub), preferably with no DRM or at least an industry standard (Adobe digital editions) and are priced reasonably, more people will be inclined to purchase content than to download it.
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