Y’know how Nokia is about to launch its Comes With Music scheme, where you buy a handset and as part of the price get unlimited music downloads? Well, Sony Ericsson has just announced its own unlimited scheme to compete. It’s called PlayNow plus.
It’ll work on both phones and PCs, and is being run by Omnifone, the mobile music company that already runs a similar service for Vodafone here in the UK, called MusicStation. That works by you paying a weekly subscription, although it’s not entirely clear if the same model will be used for PlayNow plus.
Like MusicStation, Sony Ericsson’s service will include community features, like the ability to recommend tracks to other users. All four major record labels are on board, as well as thousands of indie labels, and when your PlayNow plus contract runs out, you’ll be able to keep a certain amount of tracks.
So when’s it available?
Well, it’s launching in Sweden on operator Telenor this year, and then rolling out elsewhere early next year, so us Brits will have to wait till after Christmas (at least) to try it. In Sweden, Sony Ericsson is launching a special edition W902 Walkman handset with the service integrated, and says it’ll include up to 1,000 “recent popular tracks” on each PlayNow plus phone.
It’s an intriguing move - partnering with Omnifone will allow Sony Ericsson to launch its service quickly and relatively cheaply, rather than the long and comparably complex process that’s gone into Comes With Music. However, with some of the fine print yet to be revealed, it’s too early to say how the two services really compare.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Omnifone has teamed up with a handset maker. Earlier this year, it announced plans to launch something called MusicStation Max with LG - the same idea of a handset-plus-unlimited music. That hasn’t gone on sale yet though.
Meanwhile, in related news, Sony Ericsson has announced that its PlayNow Arena music store will be launching in the UK by Christmas, along with the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. It’ll be one of the first mobile music download stores to sell DRM-free tracks here.
Yes, this subscription service will work, unlike every other subscription service ever. And it’ll be completely unlimited and DRM-free! Except for the limitations and, er, the DRM. I wrote a rant about it: http://tinyurl.com/4m2tjt