14 DAY TRIAL // A new year brings with it many changes, and Sony plans to make its PlayStation Network a part of these changes. At yesterday's CES press conference held by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman and Group CEO Kaz Hirai announced that the PSN would stop being the link between PlayStations and it would bring together all other Sony electronics as well. While we won't be able to play Uncharted 2 on our Sony wristwatch, the first thing that will be made available across multiple platforms is the premium video store. Starting next month, the service will grant a far wider access to its products.
The video store will become accessible to Internet-connected Bravia TVs and Blu-ray players, as well as VAIO and Windows PCs, as Hirai described this move as "leveraging the PSN platform." Another thing that will be shared by these Sony devices is a common access point, supplied by a common user ID that will work across the entire network. So, if you already have a PSN account, it will be compatible with other platforms and not just the PlayStation. In turn, if the account is first created on another Sony device, then it will also work across the entire network.
Also revealed was that this major move would be handled by a brand-new Sony division, entitled Sony Network Entertainment, Inc., and SNE will be the one responsible for all the work required to make the PSN a universal Sony network. One of Sony's projects that could work just great with this network expansion would be "Qriosity," that elusive concept that was recently detailed by a trademark filing.
The service was described by Sony as an "online shopping mall with links to the retail websites of others," a "file sharing and information portal in the field of e-commerce," and an "online distribution of music, image, or video." If these two ideas were to come together, Sony could gain a very large amount of the market, as the accessibility feature of these two could convince many people to become "Sony fan-boys." The downside would be that the Terminator apocalypse also began with a network going global.