The IFA 2010 conference in Berlin took place this week, and it was overshadowed a bit by the Apple live event on September 1, where a number of new devices, products and updates were announced. But Sony had a few announcements of their own, most notably the introduction of their new streaming media service, Qriocity.
With iTunes expanding, Sony is hoping to create a cloud-based competition that will start off inn Europe, hopefully making a dent in the market there before moving onward. This seems like a great plan, as there is always a need for greater expansion in the media sharing/streaming industry. Online radio formats have become more popular than ever in the last few years.
“We are excited to offer our customers high-quality, cloud-based entertainment experiences across many of Sony’s network-enabled devices,” Sony president Kazuo Hirai was quoted by Information Week.
“Services powered by Qriocity will revolutionize the way that users play, listen, watch, share, communicate, learn, discover, and create their digital entertainment content.”
Technically, the service has already launched on a smaller scale. In the U.S., a video-on-demand option has been available, but it is still a much smaller offer than iTunes. With this new, full release, it will give access to their full service, which is compatible with several streaming devices such as Playstation 3 and hand held entertainment machines like tablets, to the U.K., Italy, France, Germany and Spain.
This, to me, is yet another reason to get a PS3, which can stream this service. At least, once it expands to the U.S. I am a huge fan of new media streaming services, and the more choices the better. I am not a fan of iTunes, so I look forward to checking this out.
So, what do you think? Will this be a good move for Sony, or will Apple beat them out when the software updates come?
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