Sony Connect To Close/Sony SonicStage To Close / ATRAC discontinued?! July 19, 2007
Posted by sonyfanboy in Mobile Phone, PS3, PSP, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Walkman.2 comments
The Sony Connect experiment is about to get, well, disconnected: it will be winding down its music and video services in the next couple of months, and focus on servicing the Playstation group on the technical needs.
Steve Banfield, the head of the Sony Connect division, will be leaving in the next few weeks, and Tim Schaaff and Fumi Kanagwa from Sony corporate will now run what’s left of Connect engineering team. The remaining team of around 80 will be devoted support Playstation.
Sony Sonic Stage Software won’t continue. With the introduction of the Media Manager Software for Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones in the next couple of months, Sony itself will use this product for their digital audio players as well. Beside of course for the PSP, too.
It’s unclear if ATRAC support will be discontinued in future as Sony pushes MP3 and AAC forward and claim that these two formats are the ones with the brightest future.
Sure, that Sony will move to close integration of their Playstation/PSP products, DAP products and Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones so that you finally are able to share content between all devices. Perhaps this might be the strongest answer to Apple’s strategy.
