| Squilliam said: The fact that Sony has movies/music doesn't effect their manufacturing arm. Their content is available generally for all viable platforms for the most part with the exception of games. Selling their own music on their own TV isn't any more of a win for their TV arm than it is to sell Warner music on their own TVs. They are completely seperate and agnostic to each other. If they are indeed moving towards android in that fashion then they would essentially be conceding that the Playstation cannot and will not on its own conquer the living room. So they are conceding one potentially higher profit position for one which is far less profitable given free competion and open standards. Its good for the consumer but potentially bad for them if they concede their cuirated computing objectives and leave that market to Apple alone. They already sell their content to a wider audience. I don't see how this move would broaden that audience significantly. Its only real import is a change in how that content is delivered. However by strengthening digital distribution they would in part be taking market share for their own Blu Ray fabrication. |
Indeed, that's my stance. Basically, the web has been winning on all fronts as the universal distribution mean, and open platforms such as Android are the fastest expanding on all kinds of device. Conceding that it's time to capitalize on the services, content and commoditized hardware rather than the platform is only realistic. Apple's position is great, but it's not sustainable in the long term and can't be the model for new entrants. They stormed a stagnant market with an offer of products and services that were just miles better than the competition, but they will be relegated to the boutique high market as Android devices grow to be just good enough.
As to broadening the audience: pushing for Android means pushing for a standard, free platform. Take the PSN video store and imagine being able to sell that same content for any Android device via an Android App. Plus, in my opinion there's not as much cannibalizing of the blu-ray market as you seem to think: digital downloading of music is to keep and ate into into the CD market, but legal video digital distribution is basically substituing renting.
