14 DAY TRIAL // Assaulted by weak results and by falling sales for both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable (wait for the updates NPD Group numbers for February on Thursday), Sony is seeking more innovative ways to attract customers to its gaming platform. The twist is that it is using mainly initiatives aimed at non gamers, probably in an effort to expand the potential audience of its consoles.
The latest initiative is aimed squarely at comic book lovers. It seems that there's a pilot program that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is conducting with the aim of seeing whether getting comics on the PlayStation Portable via the PlayStation Store could be an attractive proposition for those using the devices.
One of the main questions those involved are being asked is whether they would like to pay for the comics via a subscription model, paying one fixed sum each month for access to different parts of the catalog, or whether they would like a pay per download model, where customers pay only for those comics that they download to the PSP.
Even if potential customers declare themselves interested, Sony is likely to have quite a tough time negotiating with the major publishers of comics, DC Comics and Marvel. After all, they might not be quite content with seeing some of their customers drop printed comics in favor of digital ones. And the company has not announced any time table to bring the new service to the PlayStation Portable, so we don't know when the newest edition of your favorite book could be downloaded and read on the PSP.
Of course, Sony could choose not to offer any of the comics created by the major brands and focus on titles created by indie companies or even internally. We'll have to wait and see how the initial tests made by the company go.