Sony’s had a hard time of things over the last couple of years. Since the recession sales of its products across the board have taken a dip, dramatic enough to mean that the company had to let a sizeable chunk of its workforce go at the end of 2008.
Now, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Sony CEO Howard Stringer is looking towards Apple for inspiration to turn things around. We reported some time ago that the Sony Online Service will land soon and aim to take on iTunes at its own game, and now it seems that there’ll be a slew of mobile devices to accompany it.
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The report claims a source has revealed that soon to be pushed from Sony’s front gates are a PSP-phone device and an iPad-style tablet that “blurs distinctions among a netbook, an e-reader and a PSP.” Both of these devices – as well as the PSP Go and selected Sony Ericsson handsets – will have access to the SOS, which will gift them access to games, music, movies and presumably e-books.
Providing a rich online media hub and distributing its contents among a selective set of mobile devices is nothing new – the App Store and iTunes have been working wonders for Apple in that respect for years now. If Sony can take a good idea and tweak it enough to make it feel fresh and worthwhile though, these devices may well turn things around the company.
It’ll have to have learnt lessons from the current PSP Go, however, which has suffered from underwhelming sales and teething problems with its download-only gaming business model.
Either way, the thought of both a tablet computer and mobile phone that mix PSP gaming elements with Sony sensibilities has got us excited. We’ll let you know more when we have it.
Via: ars technica
