Sony Admits MP3 Error 587
inflex writes "In a rare show admission of taking a wrong turn, Sony's officials have admitted that their stance on MP3 players was wrong." While this was pretty obvious to anyone who has ever shopped for a portable MP3 player, it is nice to see Sony admit their shortcoming. Ken Kutaragi puts it best when he says, "We're growing up," and with any luck future devices won't be crippled with silly formats no one uses.
pretty simple, really... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's about time.... (Score:4, Insightful)
iPods are by no means a superior product. it uses dated technology and lose out in terms of features and price to other players. What makes it sell is that it has the Apple brandname behind it.
I think Sony is about one of few competitors with the sort of brand that can compete if they get their act togather.
But... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Now if only others would do the same (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd have to talk to MPEG about that. And it's a superior format (except for, I presume, some licensing issues), so I'm not sure why they'd want to.
Adopting OGG (Score:2, Insightful)
He actually phrased it more like, "DRM issues," which is really absurd. It seems he's trying to embed it in people's skulls that licensing=copyright=DRM. Which is the same sort of semantic trickery MS and many large software companies have been using for a while to herd the masses into their 3x3 private pasture.
Anyway, my point is that I can't believe it slipped the interviewer's mind to point out FLAC, OGG, etc. have NO "DRM issues" whatsoever and would create a more robust product.
Sometimes I wonder...
Re:Article. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Adblock
Because the post is about a large company realizing the market isn't swayed by it's actions, this single word is profound, in a poetic justice sort of way. It says that the consumer, not the producer, has final say in what they are exposed to.
It's almost an ironic recursion. It's hard evidence of the future direction of market interests.
Re:Now if only others would do the same (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony was apologizing for not including MP3 support on their MP3 players(they only supported Altrac) not that they are getting rid of altrac. Oh, and in case you didn't actually know, iPods support MP3, so I'm not really even sure what basis in reality your post has. Oh, and AAC is open, just the DRM on Apples music store purchases(called fairplay) is not.
Please, RTFA and know what you are talking about before your next paranoid rant.
Thank you come again.
Crippled with formats... (Score:5, Insightful)
Devices are only crippled when they don't include formats that everybody wants. They can include all the formats in the world as long as they include the ubiquitous ones too. If they don't, then they are indeed crippled.
Apple fanboys have taken over slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
I disagree, again. (Score:3, Insightful)
so what? (Score:2, Insightful)
What do I care what sony makes, as long as someone else makes something I want. Sony or whoever can make all the silly useless gadgets they want, as long as Apple and Creative are making player that understand the MP3 format. It is not like the OGG problem, in which few players work with it, and few major market vendors are taking it seriously.
Sony needs to be honest. They took a risk based on greed and fear. The risk turned out not to work. It was not a mistake. It was a calculated risk in an effort to protect thier content based a belief that they should be paid at least for every piece of Sony IP, if not for each access to they Sony IP.
Again, I don't care. As long as there is reasonable choice, it matters not what an individual company does. It won't stop future attempts to destroy choice for consumers. Nothing ever does. And with these huge companies, such decisions, unfortunately, will not lead to bankruptcy.
Poor track record on proprietary stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it's about time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ogg (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I wish people would drop RAR. ZIP works fine and I hate having to dig up an unRAR program for the occasional oddity I might download.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not Apple's format, the rights for AAC(!) are owned by a group of companies and institutes [vialicensing.com]. So it's not Apple's choice to open it.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? One is an incompatible format that made using Sony players an incredible chore. The other is a universally-accepted format that, while frowned upon, doesn't encrypt content (and it can very easily be avoided by using a multi-region DVD player). The two are apples and oranges.
Re:If I would of known... (Score:4, Insightful)
sony really did miss a very narry window of opportunity in the mid-90's before the CD burners took off for the mini disc to succeed outside of japan. when mp3s became popular in late 90's, that sealed its fate.
in japan, mini disc succeeded for two reasons - rental CD shops are common and small profile/protected discs/recording capability were all favored by a country full of people commuting by train.
sony misread the american market, which generally do not favor new formats, don't care much about small profile or the protected discs. only musicians took up the recording capabilities. what sony should have done in america was to promote albums in mini disc format, and perhaps price it a tad below CDs. never happened...
i liked my mini disc player. i used it extensively for about 3 yeras from 1999 when i converted all of my CDs into MDs. but as soon as i switched to an iPod, my collection of about 200 MDs pretty much died instantly. ever since then, i only pull out MDs to check to see if there are any songs I'm still "missing" in my mp3 collection.
Re:Ogg (Score:4, Insightful)
Ummm, no... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr Kutaragi - known as the "Father of the PlayStation" for making the game machine a pillar of Sony's business - said the new PSP, or PlayStation Portable, handheld will grow into a global platform for enjoying music and movies as well as games.
Ummm, no it won't. Movies maybe, but not music. It's too big. Why don't these companies understand that people are looking for three things in music players:
1) Useful
2) Small
3) Beautiful
So far the only company (IMHO) who seems to have this figured out is apple.
Re:it's about time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If lower-priced, feature-rich players are losing to Apple, it's because people don't care about price that much (unlikely), they don't want all those features, or because the Apple is better in some other way, like how simple it is to use. (And it's quick, too--being able to scroll continuously means I can go from the first of my 4700 songs to the last in seconds. Personally, I think the wheel is the #1 feature--what good is your music if it takes forever to get to? And I won't even go into how good iTunes is here. Again, you might say there are better MP3 apps out there, but good design, simplicity, and ease-of-use win almost every time.) But to attempt to say it's successful because it's from Apple misses the truth entirely.
Re:Now if only others would do the same (Score:2, Insightful)
In reality, it includes a conversion utility in the package that converts MP3 and WMA to AAC for playback on the device. Therefore, it is an "MP3 Player" that does not natively play MP3s. When I buy an MP3 player, I want to be able to just drag and drop MP3s to it natively and have it parse and read them without any smoke and mirrors going on behind the scenes.
when you get down to the crux of it, it's very borderline to a bait and switch. but, IANAL, so i don't know how far an argument like that would go.
personally, I am very glad to see them acknowledge this faux pas. now, i wish they would release a firmware update or something to fix those old "MP3 players" so that they play back MP3s properly.
Re:If I would of known... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I love my iPod and I no longer have a reason to buy MD devices (I don't do nearly as much recording anymore), but anyone doing even CURSORY comparisons of the two types of devices should be able to pull apart which one they should purchase.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
If they must ignore a format please let it be WMA.
Half true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Incorrect.
it uses dated technology and lose out in terms of features and price to other players.
Correct; by any and perhaps all of these means, there are a number of products definitely superior to the iPod.
However, if your means of comparison is file space per gram or per cc, it has few competitors; and if your means of comparison is based on quality of interface, the iPod is definitely superior to the competition. One need not use bleeding edge tech to create a superior product, you can simply put existing stuff together better than anyone else.
Apple does human-use engineering better than almost anyone else. I didn't find the cost worth the improved usability, and went with an Archos product. I also prefer a command line to a window; this may mark me as an uber-geek, but far more certainly marks me as a weirdo. (Of course, the fact that I refer to iPod users as "pod people" is more obvious evidence....) Most humans place a higher value over improved usability than on improvements to other features.
I think Sony is about one of few competitors with the sort of brand that can compete if they get their act togather.
With this, I agree completely.
Re:Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what this has to do with Betamax. Minidisc may certainly have been disadvantaged by failing to support MP3, but it isn't clear that is the only thing that Kutaragi is talking about. Equally, Minidisc is VERY popular in Europe and Asia, just much less so in the US.
And the PSP ? Well, it seems inevitable to me that you'll need smaller disks if they are to work in a pocketable handheld machine. Don't buy it if you don't want it.
Too Late (Score:3, Insightful)
They just needed to add mp3 decoder to MD and make MD as a USB/FireWire mass storage device. Sony liked FireWire aka iLink and they created PERFECT MD players - small, sexy and power-efficient.
Re:it's about time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I think the point is that iTunes is what makes (and not breaks) the iPod.
If Sony creates an iPod killer that has software that crashes, creates distorted or unplayable mp3s, corrupts mp3s on upload, and hangs the player if the wrong settings are chosen, how successful do you think it would be, even if:
It's interface is simpler: Think something like a scroll ring on the outside edge so that from one side it's a simple 'up/down' interface but from the front it's a full ring. Then place one button for 'play/pause/act' and one button for 'select/switch' and then place the display inside the ring.
Storage is bigger, size is smaller.
Price is lower.
Design is 'cooler'.
Wireless headphones.
Wireless sharing.
Wireless synching.
Even if it had all those things... Heck, even if Sony sells a rebranded iPod, but the software sucked, to the point that people couldn't and willingly wouldn't use it, how could Sony outsell the iPod? There would be no buzz, no word of mouth, because if the software sucks, the player sucks.
Re:Now if only others would do the same (Score:2, Insightful)
if i were joe public, i'd never even know that it's not actually playing MP3s.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A curious thing happened at MacWorld (Score:1, Insightful)
5) Sony will become a Mac OS X licensee(eliminates the single source argument)"
Not likely, unless Sony starts making Vaios (and desktops) that use PowerPC processors. I very much doubt Apple will easily surrender the one major advantage to buying their hardware by porting all of OS X to x86*. If anything they would work together to jointly develop software for their respective platforms.
Also, it isn't like Sony to license their electronic equipment designs from other companies (a single press release isn't enough evidence to make me believe otherwise), so they'd probably only license the firmware, or FairPlay itself for incorporation into their own firmware.
In other words, we may see a Sony iPod equivalent that can handle AAC & M4A, and Sony's media division might open an iTMS compatible service, but I don't think they'll work any closer than that.
(*This from a Mac user)
Sony is an entangled octopus (Score:3, Insightful)
That's one reason why Apple's iPod has been far more successful than Sony's playuer, even though Sony has had a major foothold on CD and tape players for 20 years. The iPod's only attachments are iTunes and the Mac; and Apple learned quickly that isolating the iPod to the Mac was a mistake. Whether this kind of intracorporate meddling affects the PS3 and its dependence on Blu-Ray remains to be seen.
The WTO will fix that little boycott problem... (Score:1, Insightful)
Really? Long live the Sony memory stick! (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer: Sony has not learned the underlying lesson and continues to commit the same betamax faux pas indefinitely. It's OK when they win a format war (Playstation*), but they're too slow to realign when they can't possibly win.
Sony still needs to learn the fundamental lesson: play nice with the prevailing standards, and don't shoot yourself in the foot with unnecessarily proprietary standards.
= Joe =
Learned something? Don't bet on it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Did they learn something after Betamax?
Did they learn something after DVD Regional Encoding?
Did they learn something after Memory Stick?
Did they learn something after that ridiculous proprietary music format?
The Sony learning curve looks like a horizontal line to me. They suffer from the same desire to "own" formats that MSFT does.
Ultimately both companies will lose to open standards.