Sony Executive Calls For Always-On Media Players

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Your Old Fogey moment of the day:

Does anyone remember DIVX [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX]? Anyone?

You "rented" a film by buying the disc. When you played it, the box would phone home to authenticate the disc's unique serial, after which the same disc couldn't be replayed ever again (and you threw it away). If you particularly liked a film you could make the disc's license permanent, but it would still have to phone home every time.

Then in 1999, they shut it down, breaking even permanent disc licenses. Now discs and boxes all are landfill.

And so it will be once Sony decides that they don't want to authorize their old standard 4K Ultra HD players in order to encourage you to upgrade to their new ones. Landfill.

Think they won't quit supporting the old format? It happened many times with Microsoft and Zune. You just had to keep rebuying your music whenever the old DRM went out of fashion.

Observe: Zune also failed, and now iTunes provides DRM free (but watermarked) music.

If someone made Steam for movies, we'd all be good, but the movie industry really likes to keep selling you the same movie over and over again with each new medium iteration.

238U

 

[Jamous]

Ugh. I hate it when people try to do this. Yes; a lot of people have fairly reliable connections. Not everyone. And not everyone wants to stay connected all the time. We don't need to fucking prove ourselves to you each time we want to play a game or watch a film. It's fucking outrageous. Ugh.

 

[Akytalusia]

so. even sony now, huh? they're fools. but fine, i think they've had fair enough warning. bring it on, pioneers of the future.
let's get this party started.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Unless Sony turns around and brings out a bunch of media player-specific exclusive titles but I don't really think that's going to be an issue.

I agree, that only happened with bluray vs hd-dvd so I don't think video exclusives will happen till the next distribution method competition comes around.

OT: I have a portable dvd player for times when the power goes out, if this system were in place for dvds, that machine would be useless to me. Granted, a 4k resolution would be wasted on a small screen but that's besides the point.

 

[faefrost]

I'm guessing the right hand (majority of Sony) isn't talking to the left (Playstation division). Since this is targeted at a more mainstream audience, I don't really see an uprising happening with this like with the XB1. Just a lot of unsold units on fully-stocked shelves.

This is from the SONY Motion Picture division, which is for all intents and purposes a completely separate company from SOE. And apparently one that is run by really really stupid people.

Does anyone else wish we could see some of the internal Sony e-mails that must have been being sent out regarding this brilliant statement?

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, isn't it a SHAME that they're trying to jump on this now that we've reached high enough fidelity (Blu-Ray) that further improvements won't actually affect the viewing experience nearly as much as the last advances. It's like raising FPS from 80 to 100.

So, upon encountering a quality plateau, they... go and add a crap feature to it, making Blu-Ray a better choice.

...All while competing against Netflix.

Okie dokie!

 

[Snotnarok]

Problem, when microsoft tried this a few years back and their service failed, guess what happened to all those songs people purchased? Fuck you that's what, you lost it, paid for it and it's not yours.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Well look who's doing the one eighty now!

Oh my gosh, the Xbone fanboys were right! Sony WAS going to pull out their own form of DRM!

Seriously though, you'd think that the different divisions of Sony would be paying at least a little attention to each other. Hopefully, these were just idiots talking about it and they won't try to actually pull it...

Come on you corporate thickheads, people don't pirate stuff JUST because they're cheap shits, they do because they're sick of this 'guilty until proven innocent' bullshit they have to go through to use something they paid good cash for.

 

[Cyanic]

Mass adoption of 4k is 5 years out at best, probably more like 10 years. We only just passed a majority of homes owning HDTVs in 2012. Gaming consoles and receivers will act as a bellwether for 4k and right now there is zero support so this is all kind of pointless.

The next few years are going to be dominated by delivery methods and associated hardware rather than display technology. We're locked into the 1080p consumer cycle for the foreseeable future. Unrustle your jimmies.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm guessing the right hand (majority of Sony) isn't talking to the left (Playstation division). Since this is targeted at a more mainstream audience, I don't really see an uprising happening with this like with the XB1. Just a lot of unsold units on fully-stocked shelves.

You'd think they'd pick up on the news, though, since this was big on consumer electronics and technology sites.

This might work on a larger field, though, because consumers aren't necessarily paying attention. They don't tend to understand HDCP, for example.

Whilst I'm fully aware of that I think a lot of people just rent movies and stuff from netflix or whatever now.
I should have been clearer though.

This may be more to the point though, since 4K is the next super duper high def video format, and it's likely that people will be going for content specifically oriented towards it (given the premium for the screens). I bet there will be Netflix TOO, but I doubt that people are going to pay that premium and settle for Netflix. And I'm betting that's what Sony has in mind.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I see that the Sony pictures branch does not pay any form of attention to gaming media at all. Look at us we're the film industry, why're we no longer relevant, why aren't you watching the new Spider Man film? It's really good we swear.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Really?? Out of the entire article all you care about is the childish notion that Microsoft got bashed hard so now everyone must act the same way to Sony!

If someone is trying the same bullshit MS was trying, why wouldn't I react just as negatively? I also specifically mentioned that the division responsible for this would bear the brunt of the negativity. The gaming division is obviously not on board with this bullshit, so they would certainly be given a much-deserved pass.

Seriously, who do you think I am here? I lambasted the shit out of MS every step of the way.

Well its not the video game division so it doesn't personally affect us, most pirated content is not played through media players so it doesn't affect the pirates, and while everyone can agree its a bad idea it is in no way on par with what Microsoft tried to do.

There were plenty of people who would not have been "affected" by what Microsoft tried to do either. In fact, for the most part, it wouldn't have impacted me one bit; I'm virtually always online, and the majority of my games are Steam licenses. I still vehemently opposed everything MS was trying to do on the grounds that it would negatively impact other people for no good reason -and- because I don't think corporations should be allowed to rewrite the rules entirely in their favor without delivering tangible, guaranteed benefits to the consumer.

Sometimes you can be mad at a company or a person just for being stupid even when it doesn't impact you personally.

So please forgive us for not getting outraged over nothing.

If it ends up being nothing, there won't be too much outrage. If it turns into another Xbone-caliber fiasco, I hope it earns a similarly fiery response. Consumer rights and practices, at this point, require vigilant defense.

 

[Vylox]

So Sony's media division still hasn't figured out how to curb piracy...

Since piracy isn't about actually paying for something, since piracy isn't about theft, its all about service. SERVICE ... service is what's important. And the more these folx keep shoving DRM down the consumer's throats, the MORE likely it is that they will turn to piracy in order to access the media that they desire. So these companies need to get their heads out of their collective arses and get with the program .
(Its interesting to note that these guys have degrees in business management and administration, but don't understand how a service business actually works. They need to ditch their Ivy League-esqe education and drop down to a community or lower-end college classes on the same subjects and see the damn difference, b/c the lower end colleges and the community ones all teach about providing excellent customer service no matter what your business actually does)

 

[Strazdas]

this is 2013 and you still have not managed to get rid of region locks, what kind of stupidity is this? why woudl i ever buy a player that had such restrictions. remmeber when music players tried that? yeah, half of the legal songs didint play. this will never work. besides either the devices will get cracked real easy or they will simulate the whatever few bytes of checked they have on the software and will priate it anyway.

Wait... don;t most people watch movies on netflix or lovefilm now?

netflix and streaming services still do not achieve the quality of blu-ray films.

and thats why piracy exists. piracy is the ONLY way to get blue ray quality as digital content.

Mass adoption of 4k is 5 years out at best, probably more like 10 years. We only just passed a majority of homes owning HDTVs in 2012. Gaming consoles and receivers will act as a bellwether for 4k and right now there is zero support so this is all kind of pointless.

The next few years are going to be dominated by delivery methods and associated hardware rather than display technology. We're locked into the 1080p consumer cycle for the foreseeable future. Unrustle your jimmies.

1080p is good enough though. unless you got a massive screen you dont really need more for a movie. gaming is a different beast but gaming is a minority of TV usage. Besides, im not so sure about 1080p. im loking around for a new set (tower + monitor) to be bought by the end of the year and thus im strolling around ships just to get the general feel. the vast majority i saw was above 1080p.

 

[Nazulu]

You know, I'm sick of hearing 'digital future' more than any other words right now. It's right up there with elitist, troll, always on, whining, entitled, ignorant consumers. They don't have a defense for this.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Man, Western Digital and Seagate must be laughing their fucking arses off right now.

 

[newwiseman]

This isn't going to do anything but increase piracy, why pay to deal with that kinda bs

 

[rob_simple]

I'll just stick to my Blu-Rays, then. They look fantastic on my TV, so I don't see what benefit I'd get from this new, more restrictive system.

Also, not that it really matters, but this is a completely different scenario to what the Xbone attempted to do, just for any Microsoft fanboys trying to call out Sony.

If I don't want this intrusive new media management (which might never even happen, just because one guy said it should) I can still watch films on DVD or Blu-Ray or Netflix or rent them from Sky Box Office...

If I want to play next gen video games I need to do so on a next gen system, and if I wanted to play Microsoft's exclusives in particular I'd have needed to jump through their anti-consumer hoops.