Sony Targeting Digital Movie Download Segment

Sony lost the opportunity with the online music downloading market where they stuck with their proprietary format ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) and Apple stole the user’s hearts with their iPod and iTunes music store. With iPod selling like hot cakes even years after the launch and iTunes selling more than a million songs on a daily basis, anyone would be jealous. Sony being the king of the portable entertainment devices with its Walkman in the 1980’s sure is one of those companies which want a slice of the market.

Now, Sony is looking towards the future. If hearing songs on the move is a big market today, future would be about moving pictures! Sony wants to become the iTunes of the digital movies download market. In fact, in their statement to the media senior vice president of Sony Pictures Michael Arrieta referred to Steve Jobs and his achievements. He said: “We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like Jobs did for music, but for the film industry”.

Sony plans to make a beginning by releasing 500 films next year in various formats. Interestingly, the company does not want to limit itself to their own Movielink venture. Looks like they have understood the benefits of not remaining totally closed source with their experiences in the digital music download market.

However, it might not be very easy for them. Apple has a reputation and with industry-leading H.264 codec to be included in Mac OS X 10.4 and QuickTime 7, they would soon have an advantage over Sony and movie studios might want to opt for their venture instead of Sony. They also have massive experience with the hardware and software integration essential for something so resource intensive and bandwidth consuming.

With digital content piracy rampant on the web, it would be a killer market in the coming times to become a successful player in the video downloading market!