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Toys Media Music

Sony, Walkmans And The iPod 269

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tunes-on-the-go dept.
yootje writes "A long story about Sony, and how Sony developed: from the first walkman, until the latest competition against the iPod. "
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Sony, Walkmans And The iPod More

Sony, Walkmans And The iPod

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  • Retail outlets? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SIGALRM ( 784769 ) * on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:07PM (#9614057) Journal
    Sony is ... opening retail stores to showcase Sony products

    Wow, I hope that tactic works better than it did for Gateway [gateway.com].

    • Re:Retail outlets? (Score:2, Informative)

      by fullmetal55 ( 698310 )
      we've had ~5 Sony Stores here (edmonton) for a long time... they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. more keep popping up

    • Re:Retail outlets? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ced_Ex ( 789138 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:17PM (#9614122)
      Man.. how old is this article? We've had the "Sony Store" here in Canada for years! All they sell is Sony stuff, and they even have a Sony credit card.

      The unfortunate thing about the store is that the prices are way higher than another electronics store selling the same product. Then again... what other electronic store actually showcases bleeding edge products found no where else? Good and bad.

    • Re:Retail outlets? (Score:3, Informative)

      by weffey ( 702758 )
      Opening retail outlets isn't a new tactic for Sony. Here where I live, I can think of two Sony Stores - one of which has been open for at least two years and I think the other one even longer. In the mall I work in part-time, I'm constantly giving people directions to the Sony Store. Now, if only they taught their sales associates to help customers *before* they're at the cash ...
    • I think Sony, even moreso than Apple, has enough variety to offer in a boutique store. (I've never been to a Gateway store, so the above is not a comparison...) On the other hand, I'm still surprised that more niche boutiques, like the Bose store or the Bang & Olufsen store, seem to hold up over time.

    • Re:Retail outlets? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jm92956n ( 758515 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:20PM (#9614165) Journal
      There's a Sony store here in Manhattan, around 50th and 5th Ave., if I remember correctly. It's a very exclusive area: Brooks Brothers, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany's, and several high end retailers are close by.

      I walked into the Sony store and it was nowhere near as nice as the Apple store in SOHO. The store was physically split into two sections each with its own entrance; merchandise was cluttered; there weren't as many product demos as I expected; and the sales staff, I thought, might be more at home at a rural used car dealer lot.

      I remember the old Gateway Stores. They weren't nearly as bad as the Sony store.
    • Did someone say The Sony Store [www.sony.ca]?

    • Re:Retail outlets? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cerebis ( 560975 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:58PM (#9614465)
      The Sony Stores in Canada or more specifically Calgary have been there for decades. I used to make regular trips to oggle the Walkmans as early as 1983. That was the year the yellow Sportsman was released; much adored by my peer group, much copied by competitors. I believe you can attribute all of Sony's later yellow/orange water resistant electronics equipment to the success of the Sportsman.

      Oh the heady days of auto-reverse and conserving battery life: rewinding manually by twirling the tape around with a ball point pen through the take-up reel.

      I still have a lingering desire for tiny black rectangles with Dolby's DD symbol embossing the side.

      A Partial Walkman History [pocketcalculatorshow.com]

    • Metreon (Score:2, Informative)

      by nucal ( 561664 )
      There's a Sony themed entertainment complex / retail outlet: Metreon [metreon.com] that's been in San Francisco for at least 5 years and seems to be doing pretty well ...
  • You could replace Ipod with any other mp3 player in the title of the story. The iPod is not the only mp3 player out there, there were some before and there are plenty more now. Quite a few with many more space and features. I had to say it but you can now mod me down for my post that doesn't praise the Apple gods.

    • Re:Sony, Walkmans And any other MP3 player (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MikeXpop ( 614167 ) <mike&redcrowbar,com> on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:12PM (#9614083) Journal
      No, but the iPod is the one that they, and just about every other hard drive mp3 player, are in competition with.

    • Sony is ignoring their real market (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @02:55PM (#9614837)

      Sony (whose name comes from a combination of the words - 'Sound Nippon') seems to be going after the wrong market. They should be pursuing the young and NOT rich, and leave the rich to Apple.

      Approximately 75% of the world's people are under the age of 25 and don't have a whole lot of money. This is the market that Sony should be targeting. Instead they are using DRM, proprietary formats, and tie-ins to product from other Sony divisions to capture a chunk of the world's recorded music marketplace. Stupid, because the vast majority of people who would be buying Sony products won't because they can't afford them.
      Myself, for example. I get CD audio recordings from the public library. Then I rip them using open source software onto a $20 5 gig hard drive on a $150 PC. The recordings that I would want to hear again at some point in the future I write to a $0.09 CD-R blank (that holds 100 songs in 192kbps MP3 format) using a $25 CDRW. Then I play them outside through a $20 CDR/RW capable MP3 CD player. Every device in the process costs less than an order-of-magnitude of the price that Sony (and Apple) charges for the same utility. If someone can make the equipment profitable for this price then Sony certainly can. And I live in the wealthy western first-world. Outside the US, the EU, Japan, and Canada, people have to work ten times as many hours for the money to buy the same level of equipment.
      Sony needs to relearn that innovation is as much a process of getting new equipment affordable as it is a process of designing new toys.

      By the way, am I stealing music? No, almost all of the stuff that I listen to I bought many years ago in different formats (45 RPM vinyl, or 33RPM LP). I bought it, I can listen to it.
      Or, I listened to the songs so many times on the radio and listened to the commercials so many times that I own the right to have a copy of the song by having listened to the hundreds of radio commercials. That concept of ownership may seem unusual but it is no more strange than the various types of music ownership devised by the media companies. I absolutely, totally, and completely refuse to accept the legitimacy of the laws regarding music copyright because those laws were written by RIAA lobbyists specifically for the sole benefit of the media companies. When the media companies recognize the principle of fair use and limited copyright periods, I will negotiate the concept of music ownership with them. But they never will recognize these principles, so I feel no obligation to honor the legitimacy of the laws that they wrote to enrich themselves.

      • Re:Sony is ignoring their real market (Score:4, Informative)

        by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @03:07PM (#9614938) Homepage
        Sony (whose name comes from a combination of the words - 'Sound Nippon')

        That's not where I understood it was derived from:-
        Here it says that it (basically) comes from the latin Sonus and 'Sonny boy' [snopes.com]

      • Re:Sony is ignoring their real market (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geeber ( 520231 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @03:57PM (#9615399)
        Or, I listened to the songs so many times on the radio and listened to the commercials so many times that I own the right to have a copy of the song by having listened to the hundreds of radio commercials.

        That's an interesting justification - but that is all it really is, a convoluted justification. You are stealing. You may not agree with the laws that define it as such, but that is what you are doing.

        More importantly though is the fact that the artist, whose music you enjoy, does not see a dime, from either you, or the commercials which you use as your primary justification. They are the ones who are hurt the most, by both the RIAA and people who twist logic to justify taking music.

        If you want to steal music by ripping CDs from the library, fine. But quit using rationalization to apply a salve to your conscience. Accept what you do for what it is.

  • Stylish accessory or music device? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jskiff ( 746548 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:10PM (#9614071) Homepage
    From the article...

    "Customers who look to the iPod as the only advanced styling and fashion statement out there are going to take more than a second look at the Walkman.''

    Possibly so, but most of the folks I know who have iPod's (including the Mini) don't just like the way it looks, but also like the fact that "it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC. Not to mention, of course, the hardware interface itself. It's simple enough that even my non-techie friends have figured how to use 90% of the functionality within 5 minutes. That's impressive design.

    Perhaps Sony could make one that looks better...but can they make works better???

    • The iPod (Score:5, Funny)

      by doodlelogic ( 773522 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:24PM (#9614199)
      "it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC."

      Hey you're underestimating it - it works on Macintoshes too!

    • Answer: Yes (Score:3, Insightful)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )
      For one, Sony has years more experience making consumer electronics than Apple. They already know all the inds and outs of usable design.

      For two, Sony is huge enough that they can drive the whole market themselves. (Sony is a much larger company than Apple), especially in this area. I mean, think about it:

      - Sony already has its own music store
      - Sony already has its own removable media, that is cross-compatable with every Sony device
      - Sony already has inroads into the home theatre market and portable gamin
    • Took me longer to install the software then it did to pop in a CD, run 'simple md burner' and *poof*, in no-time I had tracks on a MD to listen too ...

      And I spent much less then 1/2 the cost of an Ipod.. ( yes I realize I only get some 300 odd minutes on a disc, but for the cost difference and convenience of virtually unlimited storage, it was well worth it. )

      Now this of course wouldn't be the case if I only had a MAC to hook to it.. ( would have to use VirtualPC in that case )
      • Now this of course wouldn't be the case if I only had a MAC to hook to it.. ( would have to use VirtualPC in that case )

        No, the USB support (or something) in Virtual PC is so screwy that you can't use your NetMD with Virtual PC at all. I think I might have got it working under OS 9 + Virtual PC + Windows 2000 once... but the transfer rate was less than 1X (slower than real time).
    • Did they figure out how to turn it off within 5 minutes?

      Same could be said for a lot of mp3 jukeboxes out there. The iPod is good but could be better and Sony has the ID knowledge and experience to do it. Doesn't mean they will, though.

      BTW, a device that discharges its own battery in 3 days of nonuse doesn't qualify for "just works". The 3G iPods do just that.

  • Atrac3 (Score:4, Informative)

    by DecadeSol ( 793034 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:11PM (#9614072)
    Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding originated with the minidisc. A nice little description [sony.net].

    • Re:Atrac3 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Micro$will ( 592938 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:37PM (#9614302) Homepage Journal
      Sony has a history of blowing it's competition away, or at least putting them in check, but this format will hurt them bad. Why couldn't they include mp3 and AAC support to encourage people to switch? I suppose they'll include a convenient utility that will search for all your mp3s and convert them for you, and prevent you from using anyone else's player.
      • My first guess for not including mp3 would be licence fees.

        • Re:Atrac3 (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Micro$will ( 592938 )
          How much would Frauhoffer charge? 50 cents? A couple bucks the most? That's a very bad excuse for a $200 to $500 player.
      • I suppose they'll include a convenient utility that will search for all your mp3s and convert them for you, and prevent you from using anyone else's player.

        My guess; as soon as the software is installed, it automatically searches, converts your MP3s to ATRAC format and "helpfully" overwrites/deletes the originals since "you won't be needing those anymore".

  • Pricing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zorilla ( 791636 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:11PM (#9614080)
    I can't think whether the price for a Sony portable music player to compete with the iPod would be higher or lower, seeing that both Sony and Apple sell products the public sees as "premium". Considering that most of Sony's music products are priced high just for the name, they'll have to make competitive pricing for such a product focused point in order to beat Apple at this game.

  • Encoding limitations? (Score:5, Informative)

    by nayigeta ( 792068 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:12PM (#9614081) Homepage Journal
    From the article: "... can play songs encoded in the popular MP3 and Windows Media formats on the computer. However, the program has to convert songs to Sony's proprietary Atrac3 format, the only file type the portable players will support."

    I think this is will be a challenge for this device to pick up speed.

    The additional effort and time needed to convert MP3 to Atrac3 format might not be a popular.

    "The problem is they are a company at war with itself. So because they want to own everything, they end up owning nothing."

    • Sony's proprietary Atrac3 format
      Atrac... atrac... atrac... I know I've heard that before. Hmm. Wonder if that ever caught on.

    • Re:Encoding limitations? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Half-pint HAL ( 718102 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:33PM (#9614264)
      The additional effort and time needed to convert MP3 to Atrac3 format might not be a popular.

      Perhaps more importantly (seeing as this conversion will be pretty much invisible to the user) the loss of quality in the conversion won't be popular. It's not just audiophiles with perfect pitch who can hear the compression artifacts in a tune subjected to two different compressions.

      As long as magazines point this out, the Walkman is doomed to failure unless Sony do a U-turn and rewrite their ROMs to handle native MP3.

      [That said, I feel obliged to point out that I quite like ATRAC. The time-based compression saves all the guessing over how big any given MP3 will turn out and the sound quality is better than most -- if not all -- of the MP3s that I've heard.]

      HAL

      • Re:Encoding limitations? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        [Atrac's] sound quality is better than most -- if not all -- of the MP3s that I've heard.

        Then you are listening to poorly encoded MP3s. In fact, according to the Hydrogen Audio listening tests [rjamorim.com], Atrac is probably the worst modern, lossy audio compression format.
    • ... to get their music, just like Apple does with iTMS.

    • Re:Encoding limitations? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ykardia ( 645087 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @02:09PM (#9614527)
      I once bought a Sony Network Walkman - one of my bigger mistakes.

      ATRAC exists to facilitate DRM - you can only "check out" your songs to the player a limited number of times before you need to check them in to allow you to check them out again.

      If that sounds confusing, it is because it is confusing.

      Don't buy Sony music players - it appears the record label has too much power over the people who make the consumer electronics.
    • This is done transparently by the sync software. Users have to do nothing for this and many won't even be aware of it.

  • I Don't Think Sony Stands a Chance... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FlipmodePlaya ( 719010 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:12PM (#9614082) Journal
    Though I said that when they introduced the Playstation, and look how that turned out...

    Regardless, there are dozens of players on the mark with more features than Apple's. It's subjective, but I think many of them look better and are easier to use. The far majority of them are much cheaper. Despite all this, the iPod dominates the market.

    It's a style thing, and fasion has great turnover. The iPod will be forgotten at some point, just as I threw out my last poncho the other day. The way Sony will prove me wrong again will probably be in its marketing. I'm sure they can throw together a better campaign than Apple with their greater resources.

    • Re:I Don't Think Sony Stands a Chance... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I threw out my last poncho the other day

      What? Ponchos are out of style?! My god, what shall I do?

    • Re:I Don't Think Sony Stands a Chance... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nmk ( 781777 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:52PM (#9614404)
      The iPod will only be forgotten if Apple stops innovating with the design and features. As you can see with the introduction of the mini, this is not about to happen. Say what you will about the iPod, but the clickwheel is absolutely ingenious. Its becuase of Apples focus on making things as simple as possible that the iPod is selling well. Its not a coincidence that players with more features are unable to make a dent in the iPods market share. People don't give a damn if the player has a mic or not. They want to use it to listen to music, they want it to be styligh, and they want it to be as simple to use as possible. Nobody has come close to Apple in these three prime areas. If someone wants to compete with Apple, it has to be in these three areas. Features be damned. (PS. not many players have integrated PDA functionality and built in games like the iPod.)

    • "Style thing" my ass. It's function and form. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ThousandStars ( 556222 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @02:41PM (#9614722) Homepage
      Regardless, there are dozens of players on the mark with more features than Apple's. It's subjective, but I think many of them look better and are easier to use.

      Ease-of-use is subjective, but as another poster pointed out, someone who has never seen an iPod before can figure out all its functions within five minutes. Ease-of-use goes beyond the device itself, and to the methods of interacting with the device, and that's where the iPod shines brighter than any other portable music solution. The integration with iTunes and the use of a fast firewire connection makes the iPod really plug and play: one can organize the tunes on a Dell desktop or Powerbook, plug in the iPod and have it work.

      At the same time, the chief feature, to me anyway, is portablility, and the iPod (and now the mini) have the best combination of small size and large capacity.

      When you say the iPod is only a fasion statement, I think you're wrong. It's a beautiful device, sure, and that's a plus, but it's also simply the best.

      The iPod will be forgotten at some point, just as I threw out my last poncho the other day.

      Agreed. The day is coming when small, hard-drive based players become commoditized. But then again, I thought it would already be here, and yet years after its introduction the iPod continues to dominate. At least until after Christmas, I see no serious competitors, which brings me to the last point.

      The way Sony will prove me wrong again will probably be in its marketing. I'm sure they can throw together a better campaign than Apple with their greater resources.

      Maybe. But Sony's device comes late to the market and offers no real technical advantages over the iPod. In fact, it offers technical disadvantages because it only accepts Sony's Atrac (I'm not sure about the capitalization) format. That means anyone who wants to use it must wait for their music to be converted to an inferior format that will further reduce sound quality. Anyone who asks me whether they should buy a Sony portable music device will get a resounding "NO!" I suspect Sony's player will get drowned out by other competitors like Dell and Creative. Sony's efforts don't always pan out: consider the Mini-Disk. I think this will merely be another one.

      Still, I agree with your header, because I don't think Sony stands a chance either.


      Disclaimer: I don't own an iPod and will not until/unless Apple offers Ogg Vorbis support. That being said, I recognize that I'm in the minority, and I understand why other people buy them, which is why I posted the above.

    • It's a style thing, and fasion has great turnover. The iPod will be forgotten at some point

      Huh?... the original Walkman in all its forms was "fashionable" for something like 15 years!
    • I'm sure they can throw together a better campaign than Apple with their greater resources.

      Hmm. I don't recall the last Sony campaign to get a Grand Kelly, [magazine.org] kick ass at the Clio's, [adforum.com] and win big at Cannes [macnn.com] all in one year, but maybe I just missed it.

      Part of the success of the iPod is the marketing, and it's not about brute force dollar spending. This is an amazingly well crafted brand. Unlike what I would call Sony's portables...is there even a brand there? Oh yeah...some alien who pulls mad tail. Neat.

  • No chance against Apple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sam3.14 ( 792129 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:13PM (#9614090)
    I really don't think that Sony will be able to compete with the iPod. iPods already have a reputation of being the best of their kind. Unless Sony's model is significantly cheaper or better, people won't buy it.
    • Among a far wider audience Sony has a reputation for being the best of their kind. Apple's appeal is far more selective and the iPod can certainly be improved upon. I don't consider the iPod the best of its kind, although I though the 1G model was when it was current.

  • Mmm (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This new Sony iPod killer may be small [engadget.com], but on close inspection, it's kind of ugly [engadget.com].

    Looks like the interface will be similar to the iPods as well, still feel Apple's way is kind of clunky for searching through large music lists.
    • that is just the prototype. The finished version might look a bit different. Sony also will improve on a different model as it did to the 8MM Handycam. Once Sony gets customer feedback, the Networked Walkman will look different, have more features, and cost less.
    • Clearly subjective, but I don't think it's ugly. You could argue the iPod is ugly, too, I suppose. Don't like the way the supplied case scratches the display and the white is more trendy than classy.

  • Misses something important. (Score:5, Informative)

    by user no. 590291 ( 590291 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:13PM (#9614095)
    In particular, it fails to mention their efforts to hobble consumer devices, including but not limited to ATRAC and Magic Gate. And no article about Sony's interaction with technology is complete or accurate without a mention of one of their senior executive's Churchillesque rant against peer to peer networks [theregister.co.uk]:
    "The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams," Heckler said. "It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
    We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC.

    Remember that when you buy Sony, you support the people whose management said these things.

    • As if Apple doesn't do these same things... PlayFair vs. Apple, anyone?
    • Parent:

      In particular, it fails to mention their efforts to hobble consumer devices, including but not limited to ATRAC and Magic Gate.

      RTA:

      Some analysts question whether Sony will trip over itself as its content divisions -- which make movies and films -- insist on ways to control or limit technologies that deliver that content to consumers.

      the program has to convert songs to Sony's proprietary Atrac3 format, the only file type the portable players will support.

      Magicgate is presumably not releva

    • This is really where Sony lost the battle.

      The walkman succeeded due to copyright violation, and what many would consider fair use. Sure we sometimes bought the tape, but often we would just buy vinyl. Then we would buy cheap blank tapes and copy the album to use on the Walkman. If someone else had a copy, then we would make a copy. Of course even the cheap blank tapes were expensive, which made it hard to have money for the records, which made us copy other peoples albums. We certainly would have had

    • Of course, Apple uses their DRM to exclude competitors' devices from playing their files and Apple is one of the most aggressive enforcers of IP in the computer industry. Remember when you buy an Apple product you are supporting a bunch of litigous patent bastards.

  • Problem is those non-Sony artists. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crovira ( 10242 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:14PM (#9614105) Homepage
    Where Apple scored was in getting ALL the major companies to go for ITMS.

    I SINCERELY doubt that Sony will engage in industry-wide marketing with the other majors.

    Now, if only the ITMS would serve as a outlet for the Indies as well...

  • Take a leaf from the Walkman please Sony... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:15PM (#9614110)
    The Walkman quite possibly defined audio in the 1980s, but Sony seem to have forgotten that this wonderful device that made them tonnes of cash was built around a format invented by someone else; Philip's audio cassette tape.

    You would really have expected Sony to have capitalised on both a) the popularity of MP3s and b) the popularity of their brand. But no - we're stuck with ATRAC - and unfortunately, it looks like they accidentally took a leaf from the Betamax manual. When are they going to learn?
    • I concurr, Sony products seems to be most profitable when they use to existing formats. Mini Discs, Betamax, and ATRAC haven't been too succesful. Wheras releasing movies in the theatre and on DVD, music CDs, PS games on CD and DVD, and casette tape and CD players have been quite succesful. I suppose they hope no one will notice, since the sync software will do the converting, not the user.
    • They will never learn. I used to work for Sony (in its research labs in Japan) and I can tell you that I have NEVER seen a worse case of Not-Invented-Here (NIH) syndrome EVER! I had begged them to let me buy a video card for some image processing research I was doing but since the card wasn't designed there I had to design and build a video card using static RAM(!) before they would let me work on algorithms. BTW, I had to use the NeWS workstations too....

  • Openness and Consumerism (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:17PM (#9614124)
    I'm sure Son'y brilliant engineers can come up with an iPod-a-like which will work well and sell well, but I din't think thye'll beat the iPod.

    Early to the market is a big gain, as is having developed a highly usable product, both of these are on Apple's side. Furthermore, the kind of buyers who buy iPods probably understand the benefits of open standards - Mp3 and AAC against Sony's proprietary ATRAC system, even if they don't already have Mp3 collections. Sony stands for lock-in. Customers rarely take well to that
    • Apple wasn't early to market with the iPod.

      Sony may support ATRAC internally but it supports many formats in the sync software so your problem simply isn't one. No company stands for vendor lock-in more than Apple.

  • Gonna have to change the format (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jahf ( 21968 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:22PM (#9614182) Journal
    "This is not a three- or four-month struggle. We see this as a multiyear battle,'' Wiser said.

    I like everything I see about the Sony products including their attitude on the long-haul. Everything but one ... they still use their nasty-sounding ATRAC format (the same one used for minidiscs).

    Sorry, but if you can't play MP3 OR Ogg Vorbis OR AAC, you're dead in the water. Yes, they bundle software to convert those formats (not sure about Ogg Vorbis, which is what I use) for loading onto the player as ATRAC files, but this is seriously not something that interests me.

    Give me the same basic form factor, a higher price (but still under iPod), and the ability to natively play MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC (yes, all 3 ... I actually would be happy with OV but I'm not the mass-market ... I'll even admit that you could probably get away without including OV for the next couple of years with no significant market loss) and you've got me hook, line and tweeter.

    Until then I'm sticking with my rather huge but very flexible Neuros. A shame, because until I found the blurbs about the ATRAC (that verbally sounds too much like 8-track :) file format I was seriously drooling.

    And while you're at it, allow me to load files via USB Mass-storage so that I don't need a bunch of flaky software to load the player. Right now this and size are the only detractors keeping the Neuros from being the best thing out there. An Ogg player with USB Mass-storage loading (Neuros supports USB mass-storage, but won't play songs loaded that way because they are not in the database) that is small with a significant battery life and good corporate support ... is it so much to ask? Yeah *laugh* I guess so.

    • Almost what you want... (Score:2, Informative)

      by BearJ ( 783382 )
      Have you checked out the iRiver H series? They are slightly larger than the iPod, have about 16 hours battery life and can load songs via USB mass-storage. Songs loaded this way can only be played via filename until you update the database. I use a program called iHPtool. I leave it on my player's hard drive itself, and after I dump new files, no matter what computer I'm at, I can quickly update my database.

      And, it has a built in FM tuner, comes with LCD remote, optical and analog ins and outs, records di

    • Everything but one ... they still use their nasty-sounding ATRAC format (the same one used for minidiscs)

      Huh? ATRAC is the format that most audiophiles seem to choose if they want a portable device and are willing to use lossy compression (e.g., they go with MiniDisc).

  • I'm Interested... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:24PM (#9614193) Journal
    Sony said it has sold more than 330 million Walkmans worldwide, nearly 150 million of them in the United States.

    There is a reason Sony sells so well. They make some of the best electronics in the world. I own a Sony TV that has been working for 8 years and never had a problem. Everything I purchased from them has lasted and worked. I pay more for it, but I think it is worth it. Much better than paying 25% less for something that breaks in a year. With Sony I have never purchased an extended warrenty because I feel secure knowing the product was manufactured to last.

    As for them opening stores, if they are doing this for marketing (and not profit) I think it is a very smart move. Apple opened a store in a shopping center near me, and it is cool to go and play around with their toys. Plus, the people they hired are trained to be friendly and more playful compared to the "computer store" with the small Mac section in the back and the over stressed salesman. By having their own store, they can have a different buisness model than a store (marketing and advertising their product versus sales).

    • Tell Howard Stringer to make the cheque payable to CASH.

    • Re:I'm Interested... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by e40 ( 448424 )
      My experience with Sony products is vastly different than yours. My first Sony purchase, of any significance, was a Beta VCR. I still have it. It still works. It's a really amazing piece of engineering. Truly awesome.

      Around 1990 everything I bought that was made by Sony died soon after the warranty run out. A TV. CD players. A Car stereo. A VHS VCR. All of them developed some problem, some fatal some not. I can no longer buy Sony products. I've lost too much faith in them.

      I'm not someone that

  • My first walkman (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zr-rifle ( 677585 ) <zedr@NospAm.zedr.com> on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:28PM (#9614219) Homepage
    I bought my very first Sony Walkman when I was about 13, after I had saved money for over a year. I was so proud of it, although it was big, bulky and made an awful whirring noise while playing. Still it survived water, dust, various people sitting on it and even being dropped the 4 fourth floor of a building. Actually, it works to this very day.

    I prefer more fragile stuff.
  • If someone could please pull that Consumer Reports list of the best Home Electronic companies and tell me where Sony ranks, that would be swell.

    The last time I checked, Sony sucks. It has been nearly 10 years since Sony rooled in terms of quality. Now, I consider them to be the Wal-Mart of Home Electronics. Their TVs and PlayStatios may rule but that same craftmanship is lost on all the other stuff they choose to slap their brand on.
    • I'm always suprised to see these comments. Most of the electronics in my house are Sony because my parrents love the brand. All our TVs are Sony. They all work great, look great, and last for years and years and years. We have two Sony camcorders. One from over 12 years ago that still works (it's a 8mm, you know, the low quality verison of Hi-8). We have a digital Sony camcorder that's tiny and uses Digital-8. The thing is amazingly small and compact but works fantastically. We just got a Sony DSC-T1 digita

  • sony portables debunked (Score:3, Informative)

    by FlunkedFlank ( 737955 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:39PM (#9614310)
    iPodlounge has a pretty good article about Sony's new offerings: How Sony Cemented iPod's Supremacy [ipodlounge.com]

    a biased source? yes. but a fair analysis? yes, IMO, including full bias disclosure at the end of the article.

  • Minidisc (Score:3, Insightful)

    by molafson ( 716807 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:45PM (#9614362)
    This device has more in common with a minidisc player than an iPod, it seems. Right now I use a two-year-old md player, and it's okay. It's no iPod, but it only cost about $100 back when I bought it.

    Pros: Excellent battery life (up to 40 hours); separation of device and media (the discs); uses one standard AA battery; cheap.

    Cons: Everything else... the sound quality of ATRAC doesn't really matter to me, but the process of converting CDs and MP3s is bullshit. Sony's loader programs suck. And it doesn't help that they won't support Mac OS X.

    Now, consider this new Sony Walkman thing; it appears to have lost 3/4 of the pros of the md player (as above). So there's no way in hell that I would buy it. I think I'll wait until Sony's new "Hi-MD" players come down in price. These are md players that can record 45 hours of music or 1 GB of data on one disc.

  • MiniDisc vs. iPod... now AAC vs ATRAC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EvanKai ( 218260 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @01:48PM (#9614378) Homepage
    We bought a few Sony MD recorders for academic use before we realize how difficult it was to get the recorded content off the minidiscs.

    While the product description for new Walkman claims the software included with the Walkman can convert MP3 and WMA to the proprietary ATRAC format... there is no mention of how or if the files can be converted to use on a non-Sony product. In the 80's, I could move a tape from my Sony Walkman to my Magnovox boombox. Sony worked with a standard format for recording and media and they were successful. You'd think they would have learned from the MiniDisc's failure that open and compatible sells better than close and proprietary.

    To get the best of Sony style but a less restricting DRM, check out RetroPod [retropod.com].
  • No one here gives a rat. Most people that wanted an mp3 player on slashdot either bought an iPod or some other player for an informed reason. Sony is hoping these things will sell to adults (that's how they get around not supporting MP3's) that having jumped on the digital music boat.

    Sony is banking on their assumption that iPod's are the "hip" device for the youth while the walkman will capture an ignored market share that was waiting for a familiar name before making an investment.

    Their assumption is fl

  • Seriously. Apple owns the portable music market. Apple is the heavyweight champ. Let it go, the only thing other companies are going to do is waste money.

    There is still money to be made in the $100 market. Maybe for a car mounted MP3 system, but the battle for mid/upper range pocket music is over. Apple won it.

    Everything that Apple did wrong in the desktop computer war worked perfectly for the portable music market.

    LK
  • The neat thing about Sony is that they seem willing to experiment more than most other companies. They will develop interesting new devices that anyone can see will have very little market, but are really cool, and they will market them. They usually fail and disappear, but at least they tried. (Example: they had an eBook reader in the late 80's, using a mini-CD format).

    I think there are people deep in Sony who watched a lot of The Jetsons and Star Trek as kids, and really really really want to make al

    • This is the engineering centric management style of Sony that gave rise of Sony in the 20th century and will be the cause of its downfall in the 21st century. As you said, Sony has been creating a lot of failures and out of the failures, two big successes: Walkman and PS. Sony allows its diverse groups of engineering to compete among themselves to come up with the best products and it creates the engineering powerness of Sony which leaded to its brand in the past.

      In the 80s/90s, consumer electronics were m

  • No Mention of Sony's Content Creation Business! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wernst ( 536414 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @03:51PM (#9615346) Homepage
    Wired had a great article last year (which I can't find - dammit) regarding this very subject. They explained how the hardware folks at Sony(i.e., the people who would make an iPod clone) were forbidden to make such a device from the higher-ups at Sony, who were protecting their movie and record business, because OBVIOUSLY (eyes rolling here) if you sell hardware that plays MP3s, you're promoting stolen music, which takes away money from Sony Records.

    Only a moment's thought should reveal that this must be true. Skimming the linked article doesn't reveal any such connection. Sigh.

    All the music players Sony releases use their weird compression method which requires converting MP3s to their own format. Think about why this is, and consider how much money Sony makes selling music and movies.

  • Here is a very interesting take on the new line of Sony players, shamelessly stolen from As the Apple Turns [appleturns.com]:

    Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out,
    • I should have tried it with links intact:

      Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste [slashdot.org] in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony [sonystyle.com] introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute [macminute.com] reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB ha

    • I think it's a little early to proclaim that Sony will only support 48K data rates in this device. The interesting thing is that you can feed the sync software high quality music and it will downconvert automagically for you. Theoretically that's exactly what you want assuming the quality is good and the application doesn't suck. It would be safer if the device was simply a USB/FW HDD and you could control everything yourself. Some of Sony's other new models do that (and support mp3 directly) but the iP
      • I think it's a little early to proclaim that Sony will only support 48K data rates in this device.

        RTFA. Sony only uses the 48k rate to come up with the magic 13,000 songs in your pocket figure. The normal rate of 132k (songs purchased on Sony Connect) will actually let you store less songs than you would be able to if you used a 20GB iPod.

        Furthermore, one wonders if the magic "30 hours of battery life" claim is also derived using 48k files. Believe me, this makes a big difference, because battery life
  • WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

  • ATRAC Only (Score:3, Informative)

    by m1a1 ( 622864 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @05:21PM (#9615994)
    These things are ATRAC only. No thanks Sony. Take your shitty music player back to the drawing board.

    Seriously ATRAC got the worst rating for 128kbps in the Hydrogen Audio Forums competition. The worst! Does anyone want to spend $200 - $500 on a player that will only play the lowest of the low? I certainly don't. Rio karma plays ogg and mp3 and wma and flac if you want lossless. Sony is the king! They should be destroying Rio and Apple by making a player people want! They should support every possible format. Especially those that are free to support (vorbis and flac come to mind).

  • minidisc woes (Score:3, Informative)

    by xpulsar87x ( 305131 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @05:29PM (#9616039) Homepage
    I owned a Sony NetMD walkman for a few years (I now own a 40gb iPod :). Their software to get songs on the device was absolute garbage, but there was some weird method in which it would convert your mp3s to ATRAC and put the DRM stuff on it, but you could just convert that mp3 again and then it would lose the "transfer count" on it. Seemed kinda dumb. I hated using it anyway.

    In order to get MP3s on the device, I'd use a combination of things. I'd burn a cd with Nero's Image Writer, and then mount it using Nero's image mounter. Then, I'd use the NetMD SimpleBurner, which was a well designed program imho. Rip to the MD, umount and delete the image, and there you go. Still, takes a number of steps to get done.

    I'll take my iPod over that any day.

  • Used to be a customer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Monday July 05, 2004 @07:07PM (#9616591)
    The article states that Sony "has been hurt by price wars and weaker demand" but I think that doesn't tell the whole story. I think the company's focus on quality has shifted dramatically in the last decade, for the worse.

    I was once one of Sony's biggest cheerleaders out there. I loved their products. They were reasonably priced, functioned well and came with great customer service. I would go out of my way to buy the Sony product over a competitor's in many situations.

    No more. In the last decade, I've bought Sony products that have failed well before they should have and I've had several decidedly unpleasant dealings with their customer service people who seemed far less interested in actually helping me than somehow convincing me that it was pretty much my own fault and I should just accept it. Amazingly bad service and their products seem to have gone downhill. Not only have I started buying products by their competitors, but I now intentionally avoid the Sony product if possible.

    No idea what's gone so wrong with what was once a great company, but I wouldn't buy a Sony mp3 player over an iPod at a quarter of the price.

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