Sony Launches iTunes Rival

Sony Inc. has released a new online music and video download service in 5 European countries which include, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, with High- and Standard Definition contents from major studios such as MGM, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney and Warner Brothers. The new cloud-based service is widely seen as a potential rival to Apple’s iTunes and can be accessed by users via PlayStation 3, Bravia TV, Blu-Ray players and Sony Vaio PCs.

Named Sony Qriocity, the subscription-based online services platform was initially available for US users. The service only offer movie downloads at the moment however, unlimited music download is expected to be included at the end of 2010. The long term goal is to deliver a wide range of digital entertainment content such as, video, music, games and e-books. It is hoped that by doing so, the product will prove more successful than previous unpopular Sony projects.

The initial target market will be the approximately 54 million registered PS3 users although there is still a long way to go if Qriocity was to ever catch up with iTunes, which boasted of its 10 billionth song download earlier this year. More information about the service including costs, are expected to be announced later in the year.

Talking Point

Will Sony be successful in its latest attempt to break into the digital music market, following the failure of Connect in 2004?