Sony Executive Calls For Always-On Media Players

[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.

 

[madster11]

Spencer Stephens sounds like a dickhead, and can go fuck himself.

Haven't really got anything else to say on the matter, apart from reiterating that the reason people pirate movies is a lack of choices to get said movies in a convenient way.
Downloading a 1080p movie torrent is a quicker and more convenient process than paying for it. Until cheap DRM-free HD movie downloads are offered globally, people are still gonna download movies.

I don't give a shit if i have to pay $5 or nothing to download my movie, i'm going with the option that provides the better service. And because these companies are run by archaic, out-of-touch fools, that service is currently torrents.

 

[Madman123456]

Alright alright, i can understand why the content mafia is jumping onto this always online stuff because in theory, it could provide a way to enforce DRM without annoying the costumer much.

But i did not know it was even possible to have your head so very far up your ass. Did this wonderful person not see Mr Orth getting fired because he thinks people living somewhere with a shitty internet connection might just want to move? Which, by the way, some people might just do just to be done with comcast and At&t...
Did this Actor masquerading as a human not get the double backlash microsoft got at the unveiling of the xbone and e3?

The next one might be weirdly understandable, since none of the People from the always on fraction seems to be able to get this into their heads:
Always online is almost always a colossal failure. "Starcraft 2" was a notable exception for not totally crapping out. So for now, it's halfway decent.
"Diablo 3" was transformed into it's own feature, the auction house as soon as it finally started working.

I'm still amazed. This would be a philosophical MC Escher sketch. This Person has his Head so far up his Ass that he can see his own teeth.

 

[subabuser]

When will corporations learn they just cant own us, they can borrow us for a while but they will never be able to totally control flow of information.
I think they weep for times when only way to pir8 was FTP or news..
To me, pirating is a vote in a consumers hand, or washer of marketing shit piled on top of the product.
Before,they could make a shitty movie/game/song and put out trailer that has all the best parts of the movie 1:44min. long/demo of first level but all the other levels are the same/ from 14 song on album only one got a single that was good, the rest was crap and in no way connected with the feel of the first song..

 

[SinisterGehe]

I love how piracy makes the honest customers life harder with each "innovation". Also... How about people who watch movies at summer homes (common in Finland) remote locations, people who live in rural areas, people who sail around (Yet again common past time during rainy days at ports here in Finland - along with drinking). And people in submarines and military outposts (see what I did there?).



Being honest in modern society is both expensive and stressful. It is odd how places like torrent sites/communities and such offer better customer care and support than real dealerships.

 

[Petromir]

THeres more idiot decisions here. the 1st model of sony's 4k media player requires registration for a lot of its features, and to register you need a sony 4k tv......

 

[Kenjitsuka]

...And manufacturers are complaining that TV and player sales are dropping.

Pro-Tip: if you want people to buy your stuff don't block them from using it.

Sony is extremely anti-piracy because they own a movie studio and record labels...
They can only sell you ONE 4K-player, but then want to sell you movies and music for a DECADE to make the REAL cash.

Still, every DRM measure is shit that pisses legit customers off.
Making it easy to get legal content at a fair price is the ONLY thing that will EVER work.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

You're telling me there's a "new HD" coming already... Jeez, I've only had my HDTV for what, 3 years? I'm not buying another bloody one so soon. Screw the DRM too, their gaming side of things learned from what their opposition did, maybe the media side of them needs to as well.

 

[Saulkar]

And thus begins the age of licensing our media on devices that dictate our every use of them and soon a maximum audience size.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

Funny story: when they started pulling this, my PC was my only CD player. Yeah, that shit used to crash my computer.

But why would you do it? I don't know, why would you buy a DVD player? They're already copy-protected. It's bad copy protection, but it's copy protection.

The music industry probably deeply regrets the Compact Disc, because they created what was effectively the perfect physical format for music. So good it resisted all successors to date. It's a shame so many CDs now sound like they were mastered for low-quality iTunes files.

But yeah, I object to being treated like a dirty thieving pirate. I've got binders and binders of CDs I purchased legally and while I buy digital, I still buy CDs. As a consumer, I've moved more and more away from purchasing CDs from the major labels. It doesn't hurt that I'm a pair of skinny jeans and douchy facial hair away from being a hipster, so I largely don't miss it. I'll swallow my pride for certain bands (currently buying my way through the remasters of Queen, the Beatles and the Beach Boys), but in general their loss of my money is more to my lack of interest in their product and my dislike of the way they treat me.

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.

BD was also progressively more restrictive system, and it helped push HDCP into being a mainstay. This is one of the reasons it had so much studio support: BD was more restrictive than the protocols for HD-DVD. This was kind of a big deal.

I love how piracy makes the honest customers life harder with each "innovation".

Piracy doesn't. Companies do.

When will corporations learn they just cant own us, they can borrow us for a while but they will never be able to totally control flow of information.

Probably when we, the consumer, stop giving them the impression. People will break free and/or pirate media, but the increasingly restricted media will still continue to sell and sell big with the mainstream consumer. The industry will continue to grow, all while they continue to complain that piracy is ruining them and they are totally going broke. We reward this behaviour by buying into it. It's a huge business and it's still getting bigger.

Now, I don't know if this applies to you, but it applies to consumers as a whole. And it is progressive, it's been downhill since the days of video cassette at the very least (when taping off the radio was killing the industry and we had Betamax lawsuits).

And as such...

And thus begins the age of licensing our media on devices that dictate our every use of them and soon a maximum audience size.

"So it begins" is a sentiment that's decades late.

 

[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.

BD was also progressively more restrictive system, and it helped push HDCP into being a mainstay. This is one of the reasons it had so much studio support: BD was more restrictive than the protocols for HD-DVD. This was kind of a big deal.

But did it affect me, as a consumer? I've never had a problem playing a Blu-Ray in a device, from the little bit I just read on HDCP it just seems to affect people trying to copy Blu-Rays, and I can't really argue with companies protecting their product so long as it doesn't affect me.

As soon as it becomes intrusive, like video games that constantly ask me to redeem my online code even though I bought the game new but still have no interest in playing online, or this new notion that always-online is the best, then I'd start looking for alternatives.

Maybe I'm just burying my head in the sand, but I genuinely don't see what's wrong with the restrictions placed on Blu-Rays, especially when compared to a device that wants you to check in constantly and all the other Big Brother stuff they can pull while you're connected to the internets.