Sony Ericsson has revealed the next stage in the evolution of its PlayNow arena mobile music download service. Deals with 10 major record labels have been struck which will add over five million new and mostly DRM-free tracks to the PlayNow arena catalog.
Besides the ten major labels, Sony Ericsson is also planning to snare some regional labels to further deepen its bucket of musical riches. Sounds to us like the service could seriously compete with those sorts of numbers. Hit the jump for a list of the ten record companies that are already onboard.
Continue reading ‘Sony Ericsson gives its PlayNow music service a shot in the arm’
As part of its big announcement this week, which saw three new handsets unveiled, Sony Ericsson also revealed its plans for PlayNow.
PlayNow was originally an easy way to pre-listen to and then buy polyphonic ringtones from your Walkman handset. Since its launch in 2004 it’s been expanded to include mastertones (MP3 ringtones), games, full music tracks and other content.
Now Sony Ericsson’s said what it’ll do next: PlayNow Arena. From next year, PlayNow will a lot more advanced. In the Arena, users will still listen to and buy tracks and ringtones, but they’ll also be linked to Sony Ericsson’s TrackID, track identification service (kind of like Shazam).
You’ll be able to identify tracks with TrackID, then click to PlayNow to buy said tracks. PlayNow Arena will also feature TrackID charts, where the most searched-for tracks around the world will be listed. Mobile games will also be included in PlayNow, with a more open environment for trying and buying mobile games straight from your Sony Ericsson handset.
This isn’t all - customers will also be able to access PlayNow Arena from either both mobiles and PCs enabling OTA downloads to both, just like operators offer now with their music download services.
And that still isn’t all, because Sony Ericsson’s coup de grace is that the music tracks will be DRM-free. That’s right, there’ll be no limit on downloads or on what device the tracks are downloaded to. Blimey.
Sony Ericsson’s going to unveil three new handsets tomorrow, and in the best tradition of the blogosphere, details on them have already been leaked.
Sony Ericsson W890i
Perhaps the biggest news is the launch of the W890i, a slimline 3G Walkman phone. It’s an upgrade of the W880i, and has the latest version of PlayNow (4.0) and a 3.2-megapixel camera.
Sony Ericsson W380i
A second Walkman phone is also going to be announced - the low-end W380i. Again, this is another upgrade, this time of the W300i. It will apparently feature something called ‘gesture control’, although what this involves isn’t clear at time of writing.
Sony Ericsson K660i
Finally, the third handset is the 3G web-browsing phone, the K660i. Its selling point is that it will let users browse the mobile web in portrait/landscape modes and is controlled by a pointer cursor. Presumably this will be the latest Opera mobile web browser (Mini 4).
So there you have it, details of Sony Ericsson’s Christmas releases - two updates and a 3G web browsing handset. The three phones are almost certainly going to be well-made and popular handsets, but surely Sony Ericsson’s going to unveil more than this tomorrow?
Update: All three were announced as predicted, and all should be in stores before Christmas.
The Inquirer reports comments by Sony Ericsson’s outgoing president, Miles Flint, that an announcement is coming on 6th November, related to a ‘tie-up between Sony Ericsson and the Sony Connect online music store’.
Quite what this announcement might exactly entail is shrouded in mystery, and we’re not sure how it will fit in with Sony’s existing PlayNow service. But the date dovetails nicely with rumours from August of a full-screen ‘iPhone competitor’ (the ‘Mooi) coming from Sony Ericsson in early November.
The story also says that Flint ‘wouldn’t be drawn on which other handset manufacturer is going to release a touchscreen phone based on UIQ’s software but he said the announcement is coming soon’. Our guess is that this is Motorola’s ‘most secret project’ that was rumoured a couple of weeks back — a 640 x 480 pixel touch-screen with Kodak’s new five-megapixel camera sensor.
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