AllThingsD » Sony

Timing of Microsoft's "Xbox 720” Hinted at in Lawsuit

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:08:15 +0000

Microsoft is not saying when it will be unveiling a new Xbox console, except to say that it won’t be at the E3 game conference next month.

Now there’s some additional information on timing, thanks to a lawsuit between Activision and some former employees.

According to confidential agreements unsealed in the court case, Microsoft’s next game console, which is referred to as the “Xbox 720,” could be released in time for the 2013 holiday season.

The Los Angeles Times originally posted the documents on Monday, but it was Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times who came up with the theory on the timing.

The lawsuit is a complicated tale, involving Activision’s insanely successful first-person shooter Call of Duty. Former Activision developers are claiming they are owed hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and bonus payments. Activision is claiming breach of contract.

The documents, revealed last week, detail a high-profile deal between Bungie and Activision in 2010.

The 27-page agreement calls for Bungie to develop four “sci-fantasy, action shooter games,” code-named “Destiny,” released every other year, beginning in the fall of 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times. Additionally, Bungie agreed to put out four downloadable expansion packs code-named “Comet.”

Bungie is the developer behind the successful Halo franchise, but is not the developer behind Halo 4, which Microsoft is developing and releasing in November.

Here’s what Dudley is suggesting based on the contract language:

Microsoft hasn’t said when the next version of the Xbox will go on sale, but the Bungie contract suggests that it could happen in the 2013 holiday season, with “Destiny” as a key launch title. That would be similar to the way Halo was a cornerstone of the first Xbox launch in November 2001.

An Xbox spokesman declined to comment on this theory, and referred questions to Activision and Bungie.

The document also says the game is expected to be released for the PlayStation 3 successor in the fall of 2014.

The big caveat to all of this guesswork is that the document is now two years old, so timing could easily change. Additionally, the name “Xbox 720″ could just be a code name or placeholder. Of course, console makers keep the timing of their upcoming hardware close to their vests, so that consumers don’t hold off on making purchases.

In March, Microsoft’s Corporate Communications boss Frank Shaw told AllThingsD that consumers probably shouldn’t expect new hardware at the E3 game conference, or “anytime soon.”

“For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360,” he added.

Microsoft Gives Windows a Clean Sweep

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:01:54 +0000

For a long time, some Microsoft officials have privately griped that PC makers don’t present Windows in its best light. They clutter desktops with icons that are often little more than ads for third-party products; include confusing utilities that duplicate functions already in Windows; require lengthy setup; and configure PCs in ways that slow them down.

One consequence, in the eyes of these Microsoft executives, is to confer an advantage on the company’s main operating-system rival, Apple.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Microsoft is doing something about the situation. In a program unknown to most computer users, the company has been using its small chain of retail stores and its online computer store to sell customized versions of popular PC models that have been streamlined for a cleaner look and better performance. It calls these machines “Signature” PCs. They retain the maker’s brand, but sport a special Signature desktop and configuration. And they cost about the same as the identical stock version of the machine sold elsewhere.

Microsoft also offers a program that, for $99, will turn users’ Windows 7 PCs into Signature versions, if the owner brings the computer into one of its 16 stores, due to grow to 21 outlets in coming months. All Signature computers come with 90 days of free phone support, as well as help at the stores’ “Answer Desks,” which are like the Genius Bars at Apple stores.

I’ve been testing three Signature models and comparing them with the same machines as sold elsewhere without the Signature modifications. I found the Signature versions much cleaner and easier to navigate and faster in a variety of tests.

A Folio 13 model PC desktop, as shipped by Hewlett-Packard, shows a cluster of third-party software icons.

I’d recommend that prospective Windows PC buyers who live near a Microsoft store, which are mostly in the West, or are willing to shop at the company’s online store, consider a Signature machine. Information on store locations, as well as a link to online PC shopping from Microsoft, is at microsoftstore.com. Information on Signature is at signature.microsoft.com.

Some important caveats are in order. The hardware makers presumably believe, and some consumers may well agree, that the extra software, utilities and settings, which Microsoft removes or buries, are beneficial. Some of these, like offers to join game or music services, may be viewed as welcome bonuses. Others, like customized networking utilities, or launchers for the PC makers’ own media software, may be viewed as better matched to the hardware, or superior to Microsoft’s approach, even though they duplicate Windows functions. Many can be turned off, or removed, by a user with sufficient skill and time.

Also, Microsoft loads Signature machines with its own add-on software, such as its free email, photo and video programs, its Zune music and video program, and a stripped-down “Starter” version of Microsoft Office, that includes only Word and Excel, plus ads, and an offer to buy the full version.

However, the company says the stores will remove any of these a customer doesn’t want and even help the customer install competing software, such as Google’s Chrome browser, or Apple’s iTunes for Windows.

The same PC as sold by Microsoft in its Signature configuration.

At my request, Microsoft supplied me with before-and-after laptops from Hewlett-Packard, Sony and Samsung. Over the past few days, I’ve been comparing the stock and Signature versions, and testing how much time it takes to set them up, start them and restart them in daily use, resume them from sleep, and shut them down.

The Signature desktop, which is labeled “Microsoft Signature,” features a picture of a sunset over a lake as its wallpaper. It contains no icons other than the recycling bin. The Taskbar contains only icons for Internet Explorer, the Explorer file browser, and Microsoft’s free email, photo and moviemaking programs. The system tray, to the right of the Taskbar, contains only the bare minimum of items, such as the network and battery indicators.

Signature machines are also configured with battery, audio and touch-pad settings Microsoft considers optimal. The usual third-party security software—which is typically provided for only 30 to 90 days, makes you go through some setup, and nags you to subscribe—is replaced by Microsoft’s own Security Essentials program, which is free, required no registration or subscription and updates itself automatically.

By contrast, my test HP Folio 13 had eight icons besides the recycling bin, including several that were come-ons for music and game services. It also featured several HP utilities.

A Sony EH37FX included an app from Best Buy that launched every time the PC started (though you could turn this off). Both stock machines festooned the IE browser with two space-hogging toolbars, including one from Microsoft’s own Bing search service; the Signature machine had none.

The Samsung Series 7 I tested came with 10 extra icons and a bunch of special utilities.

Signature isn’t the same on every machine. In most cases, it strips out some of the added software and utilities, and retains others, but hides them in a folder buried in the Start Menu. In some cases, however, where a utility is deemed essential for a computer’s particular hardware, it retains these.

Such decisions, and indeed all of the Signature settings, are controlled by a team of engineers housed in Microsoft’s retail division.

In my speed tests, Signature beat all the stock machines on all my trials, but the margins weren’t dramatic, usually from a few seconds to 25 seconds. On the HP, the differences were especially minimal. Across all three machines, the biggest differences were the time it took to set the PC up out of the box and the time it took to shut down the PC.

One Microsoft official told me that Signature represents “Microsoft’s perspective on Windows,” rather than that of the hardware maker.

In my opinion, although it may generally benefit Microsoft at the expense of the hardware maker, it also makes for a better experience for the user.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Sony Expands Vaio E, S Series Laptop Family

Bonnie Cha — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:56:57 +0000

Lenovo isn’t the only company updating its line of laptops today. Sony is also getting in on the action, with the announcement of two new Vaio E series models and an update to its Vaio S series.

Due out this summer, the Vaio E Series 15 and 17 laptops offer revamped designs and technology to speed boot-up times after the computer has been in sleep mode. The new models join the previously announced Vaio E Series 14, but bring with them the option of larger displays — the Vaio E Series 15 sports a 15.5-inch screen; the Series 17 has a 17.3-inch screen.

The laptops feature a wraparound design with rounded corners, and will be available in white, black or silver. Each of the new models has a large trackpad; some include a backlit keyboard.

A feature called Rapid Wake + Eco promises to have your laptop up and running in seconds after it has gone into sleep mode. The Vaio E Series 15 and 17 also offer a built-in Webcam and technology to boost speaker volume. If you want to watch movies from your laptop, there’s an option to add a Blu-ray disc drive.

In general, the E Series is designed for everyday tasks and is built with families and students in mind, so if you’re looking for something a little more portable and powerful, Sony’s Vaio S Series would be a better fit — and it just so happens that there are two new members in that family, too.

The Vaio S Series 15 and 17 laptops offer a 13.3-inch display and a 15.5-inch display, respectively, and are made from lightweight materials including magnesium, aluminum and carbon fiber. The Series 15 weighs less than 4.4 pounds, and also has the benefit of an HD display with wide viewing angles.

A smaller size doesn’t mean less power, though, as both the S Series 15 and 17 will get a boost from the latest processor from Intel, called Ivy Bridge. Sony will also offer optional accessories, such as a docking station and an extended battery.

Like the E Series, the S Series models are expected to ship this summer, but pricing and specific release dates for all the laptops have not been announced at this time. Current E Series models run in the $500 to $600 range, while laptops in the S Series cost between $725 and $1,500.

Sony, Panasonic in TV Tie-Up Talks

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:49:45 +0000

Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are in talks to jointly develop or produce next-generation flat-panel television sets, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday, in a move that aims to defray the heavy cost of manufacturing a new display technology.

The discussions center on a possible partnership for production or developing manufacturing technology for organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, television sets, the people said.

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Sony Forecasts End of Loss Streak

Kelly Olsen and Juro Osawa — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:30:15 +0000

After reporting a net loss of $5.7 billion for the last fiscal year — its fourth annual loss in a row — Sony Corp. said it expects to swing back to a profit this fiscal year as its consumer-electronics and component businesses recover.

For the year ending next March, the Japanese electronics giant Thursday forecast a net profit of ¥30 billion ($376 million), an operating profit of ¥180 billion and a 14 percent rise in revenue to ¥7.4 trillion. Sony said it expects major improvements in its camera, personal-computer and component businesses, hurt last year by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan as well as the flooding in Thailand, an important production center.

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EA Says Digital Will Offset New Console Investments for the First Time

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:45:24 +0000

Despite having to sink $80 million into new console game development this year, EA’s CEO John Riccitiello is upbeat, saying that “we are absolutely a different company in a different spot.”

Typically at this point in the hardware cycle, he said, the cost of developing new videogames would lead to a loss. But in a conference call with investors yesterday, Riccitiello said revenue from digital content will keep EA profitable.

“In the face of, unfortunately, somewhat of a headwind relative to console, we’re getting top line growth, robust digital growth, robust margin expansion, robust EPS growth, while affording the investment in the next-gen console. I don’t think, going back to our foundation in ’82, that’s ever happened before. So what we are guiding for is entirely unprecedented, and it’s a function of everything we’ve been saying on the call so far. … It’s our hope to be able to accelerate top line through a transition and accelerate bottom line growth through a transition because we won’t be facing sort of negative console compares.”

Nintendo expects to release the Wii U later this year, which will require new games that tap into both the TV and a touchscreen device. Neither Microsoft or Sony have unveiled plans for their respective next-generation hardware systems, the Xbox and PlayStation. Riccitiello did not mention the new consoles by name, and instead referred any direct questions about hardware to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

“We intend to invest $80 million in Gen4 console development in fiscal ’13. We are strong believers that console will return to strong growth, and represent a great opportunity — one that is in lockstep with our digital plans.”

In fiscal 2012, EA generated $1.2 billion in digital revenues, representing a 47 percent increase year over year. In the past six months alone, FIFA 12 — one of the company’s traditional packaged good titles — was able to break $100 million in digital revenues for the first time. This year, it’s predicting digital revenues of $1.7 billion, representing 40 percent of the company’s overall business.

Even though Riccitiello painted a positive outlook, he failed to turn to the tide.

Along with a broader market meltdown, the company’s stock fell 65 cents, or 4.3 percent, at $14.48 a share. At that price, the company’s stock is off more than 40 percent from its 52-week high of $26.13 a share.

During the call, Riccitiello also tried to stress that while Star Wars: The Old Republic is an important title for the company, it is getting an unfair amount of attention by analysts. In the quarter, he said the number of subscribers fell to 1.3 million from 1.7 million when the game launched.

“So while I understand there’s an enormous amount of interest, I don’t know that it warrants as much as what we’re seeing right now,” he said, according to a SeekingAlpha transcript.

The final highlight from the call was when Riccitiello questioned how much Zynga paid for OMGPOP and its hit title Draw Something, which was No. 1 for a short period of time. He didn’t actually name the two companies, but it was implied.

“Right now, what I’m starting to see is valuation expectations that assume that these things are all hockey stick moving up and to the right with no end in sight, and I think those are bad assumptions,” he said. “Some of them will work, some of them won’t, but they can’t all be worth the multiple that I’m seeing in the market right now.”

Sony's SmartWatch Not Ready for Primetime

Lauren Goode — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:00:15 +0000

Watches with some computing functions have been around — in theory and form — for decades, but they’ve generally been bulky, super geeky and aimed at hard-core tech enthusiasts.

Now, techie watches are gaining some traction, as part of the growing trend of wearable devices. Apple’s iPod nano can be worn with a wristband, creating a music player and watch in one. Other electronics makers, like Sony, Motorola and the minds behind the Pebble watch project on Kickstarter are incorporating Bluetooth into “smart” watches. Wearers can wirelessly connect the watch to their smartphones to receive quick text, email and social notifications and to decide whether that call or email is worth answering. They can also control some smartphone apps, such as a music app, from the face of the watch.

This week, I’ve been testing Sony’s latest entrant in the market, the $150 SmartWatch. It’s Sony’s second attempt at a watch that works with a compatible smartphone to show notifications and allow the wearer to control apps from the face of the watch.

[ See post to watch video ]

After five days of wearing the watch, I found this smart watch to be less than intuitive. The interface of this SmartWatch is confusing, the set-up was tedious and some notifications come through more regularly than others. The watch also doesn’t display time all the time, which conserves battery life, but it isn’t as much of a watch when you look down and see a blank screen.

The SmartWatch is eye-catching. People noticed it and asked about it, because it obviously wasn’t a standard watch, but unlike high-tech watches of the past (like calculator and TV watches), it isn’t clunky and super geeky.

The plastic-and-aluminum watch measures 1.42 inches tall by 1.42 inches wide and 0.3 inch thick — slightly smaller than the iPod nano. The watch itself is black and white, but wristbands are available in up to six different colors.

It has a 1.3-inch OLED display, though its app icons aren’t as bright as those on the iPod nano.

Sony estimates that the SmartWatch’s battery should last around four days with typical usage, though it could last as long as a week with lighter use. In my experience, it lasted five days, though at times the watch and phone weren’t paired, and notifications sent to the watch were intermittent.

The watch uses Bluetooth 3.0 technology and is meant to work with Android phones only — ideally, Sony’s own smartphones that are “optimized” for the watch, though there are a variety of Android phones that are verified compatible with the watch.

I initially tested the SmartWatch with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone — a phone that isn’t verified to work with the watch. After downloading the necessary software apps onto the phone and pairing the two devices via Bluetooth, I only got two calendar reminders through the watch, even though I linked my calendar, email and social media accounts.

So next I tried a Sony-recommended phone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray.

Setting up the Xperia phone to work with the watch was a multistep process, as it was with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. On more than one occasion, I had to first “unpair” the two devices, and then pair them again, in order to get them working together properly.

Then I installed an app called LiveWare Manager, which is available for free in the Google app market. Then I connected the watch and smartphone using Bluetooth. After that, I had to install another app on the phone, called SmartWatch. Then I chose which notifications I wanted to receive on the watch — including email, weather, text messages, phone calls and social media updates — and then I had to log into some of those accounts again, despite the fact that I was already logged into those apps on the smartphone.

Finally, I started getting notifications on the SmartWatch.

The watch would buzz, and show a text message, tweet or email excerpt. There was a “View in Phone” option at the bottom of the screen, and if I pressed that, the corresponding app would open on my phone, allowing me to read the full info there.

But I had to press the SmartWatch’s screen firmly and sometimes more than once to get the info to appear. And navigating throughout the various options on the watch was confusing. The watch supports both apps and widgets, a nice touch since widgets show more information right on the screen, but it requires a combination of swiping side to side or up and down to access the apps and widgets. Tapping with two fingers brings you back to the previous screen.

When it came to getting back to the main screen, I was lost. I kept swiping and tapping the phone’s face, with no results. Turns out I had to pinch it to get back to the main screen.

There were some functions of the watch that hinted at the future of easy-to-access data through wearable devices. In one instance, I was on a phone call and the watch buzzed, letting me know that my boss had just emailed, which was helpful. I read a portion of the email on the watch and was able to evaluate whether I needed to get off the phone to address something quickly, or whether it was something I could respond to after the call. When I tried the Find Phone feature on the watch, the Sony Xperia phone chimed, so I could find it buried under the comforter on my bed.

Another feature of the watch that worked well for me were the phone call and SMS notifications. When the Xperia phone rang, the watch’s display immediately lit up to show me who was calling. I had the option to reject the call from the face of the watch or accept it, which would require me to pick up the phone. When I asked someone to send me text messages as a test, they appeared on the watch at the same time they were sent to my phone. I could also send quick, preformulated responses back from the watch.

This was especially useful when I was driving, although the watch’s screen is hard to read in sunlight.

Social media updates appear on the watch, at most, every 15 minutes. There’s an option deep in the phone’s LiveWare Manager app for setting the frequency of such updates, which I only became aware of after my Twitter and Facebook notifications on the watch seemed sporadic. On one hand, I might not want to get constant Twitter notifications on the watch, since I follow more than 800 active Twitterers. But the controlled frequency seemed to negate the point of real-time updates.

Lastly, it’s important to note that in order to work properly, the watch has to be within about 30 feet of the smartphone. This means that when I was on the treadmill at the gym and the Android phone was stuffed in a locker, the two devices weren’t connected and I wasn’t receiving updates on the watch. The watch was effectively just a watch — only, as I said, to save on battery life it doesn’t display constant time, which means I had to keep pressing the power button to see the time of day. Sony said it is at work on a software update that will give the option to have the clock showing on the display at all times.

The point of this kind of watch is to pair with a smartphone and provide quick and easy alerts, but the Sony SmartWatch wasn’t especially easy to use. If you’re an Android smartphone user and are in the market for this kind of compatible device, I’d hold out for a smarter smart watch.

The One Number Netflix Investors Care About Today

Peter Kafka — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:30:48 +0000

Netflix had a crummy 2011. How did the first three months of 2012 go?

We’ll find out this afternoon, when the company releases its Q1 numbers. And the easiest way to tell will be by looking at one key metric: The number of U.S. streaming-video customers.

Netflix has told investors to expect something between 22.8 million and 23.6 million subscribers. And if the stock veers wildly immediately after the earnings hit the wire today, it’s likely because of that number.

If it’s high, then Netflix bulls get some vindication: Turns out that people still like paying $8 a month for all-you-can-eat movies and TV shows, streamed to any device they want, just like CEO Reed Hastings has been saying.

If it’s low, then Hastings’ doubters can argue that the loss of high-profile movies from Sony and Disney, and increased competition from the likes of Amazon and Hulu, are big problems that aren’t going away.

There will be plenty of other numbers to dig into as well, and Citi’s Mark Mahaney lays out his helpful intrepretive cheat sheet for them, below (click to enlarge). We’ll tear into those, along with Hastings’ quarterly shareholder letter, after 4 pm ET. See you then.

EU Clears Sony's $2.2 Billion Acquisition of EMI

Vanessa Mock — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:47:34 +0000

European competition regulators gave the green light Thursday to a plan by an investor group led by Sony Corp. to buy EMI Group Ltd.’s huge music-publishing division for $2.2 billion.

The European Commission’s approval marks a coup for Sony, which has averted a lengthy in-depth second probe. However, European Union authorities set several conditions, telling Sony it must divest several assets.

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EU Expected to Approve Sony's EMI Music Deal

Ethan Smith — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:00:15 +0000

European antitrust regulators are expected Thursday to approve a plan by a Sony Corp.-led investor group to buy EMI Group Ltd.’s huge music-publishing division for $2.2 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.

Approval by the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, would represent a victory for Sony, removing the possibility of a longer review of the deal’s antitrust implications. Such a review could add several months to the process.

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Behind the Pebble Smart Watch That's Smashing Kickstarter Records

Ina Fried — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:50:26 +0000

A start-up called Pebble is breaking Kickstarter funding records with promises of a watch that can share information with an iPhone or Android-based device. As of Monday afternoon, more than 20,000 people had pledged upwards of $3 million toward the watch.

Back when he was a Canadian college student, Eric Migicovsky came up with the idea while biking in the Netherlands. He found he was constantly pulling out his iPhone just to see who was calling or texting.

“Why couldn’t I just be able to look down at my wrist so I could make a better decision of ‘Do I want to pull out my phone?’” Migicovsky said in a telephone interview on Monday.

So when he got back to university in Waterloo, Canada, he started working on such a product. But given that it was 2009 and he was in Research In Motion’s hometown, the first watch was designed to talk to a BlackBerry.

“The world has changed and that’s why we have changed with it,” Migicovsky said.

Migicovsky created about 1,500 of the first-generation watches and got funding last year through Y Combinator along with some angel funding.

But when no venture capital firms wanted to back Pebble, Migicovsky turned to Kickstarter, hoping to raise a modest $100,000.

“That was our estimate,” Migicovsky said. “It proved to be wrong and we’re happily incorrect.”

Pebble gained a further bit of attention as Sony decided to announce its SmartWatch just as the start-up hit Kickstarter.

With the staggering response, Migicovsky is working to staff up and secure enough components to start shipping orders in September. The staff, which was five people heading into the weekend, has now doubled, Migicovsky said.

“We’re still modifying the plan to account for the wild success,” he said, but added, “We know what we are doing.”

The Pebble itself uses an e-paper screen similar to the kind used in e-book readers and works with the iPhone 3GS and newer models or Android devices running version 2.3 or newer, using Bluetooth to communicate with the phone. Features vary somewhat depending on the kind of phone connected to the watch.

With the iPhone, for example, Apple doesn’t offer a way for developers to access text messages, so there is no way for the watch to display that information.

One Sony, 10,000 Layoffs

John Paczkowski — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:36:22 +0000

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai this morning announced the first step in his plan to restore the company to its former glory: Sweeping layoffs and a broad restructuring.

In his first news conference since succeeding Howard Stringer as chief executive of Sony, Hirai confirmed the company will sack 10,000 employees — roughly 6 percent of its global workforce — as it moves to refocus its efforts on three main businesses: Mobile devices, cameras and camcorders, and games.

“Now is the time for Sony to change,” Hirai said at the company’s Tokyo headquarters as he detailed his “One Sony” initiative. “We must accelerate the speed of our management, reform our business portfolio, and innovate.”

And to achieve that? First, an ugly employee bloodletting and a rejiggering of the company’s television business, which has racked up $10 billion in losses in the past eight years. Hirai says he aims to cut the division’s fixed costs by 60 percent and its operating costs by 30 percent over the next two years. Meanwhile, Sony will expand its PlayStation and online games business and push into new markets like medical equipment.

“Our goal at Sony is to become a company that creates products and services that stimulate curiosity in customers around the world and gives them an emotional experience,” Hirai said. “I am determined to transform and revive Sony. This is our only chance to change. We cannot shy away from difficult decisions.”

Sony Thinks It's Time for Another Android Watch

Ina Fried — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:00:13 +0000

Sony is giving its Dick Tracy impersonation another try.

On Thursday, the Japanese electronics giant is announcing the SmartWatch, its second souped-up timepiece. Like its predecessor, the new wrist accessory is designed as a companion to a phone rather than a standalone product.

When paired with an Android phone (from Sony or another maker), the phone lets users read their email and texts, check the weather, and decide whether to pick up the phone when they see who is calling. The newest incarnation adds the latest version of Bluetooth, an OLED screen with multitouch capability, and support for mini-application widgets.

The SmartWatch has a number of features, but nearly all depend on a strong connection to a nearby phone. Remove the phone or its Internet connection and you basically have an expensive digital watch. Sony says that relying on the phone allows it to offer a useful device and still sell it for $150.

Even when it is paired with a phone, though, there are some real limits to what the SmartWatch can do. It can do things like display email, control the phone’s music player or act as a remote for the phone’s camera. But any time you want to enter any information, or even view an attachment, you will be forced to pull out that phone.

Sony U.S. marketing manager Stephen Sneeden defends the product, noting that it already works with 30 applications, and there are more to come.

“Because all of the apps are resident on the phone, it remains to be defined all of the things that it can do,” he said. An open kit allows any Android developer to build an extension for the watch. “It can handle much more than is currently available.”

Having a product fully tied to the watch makes sense, he said, noting that most people have their phone with them at all times, and that such devices pack a strong processor, plenty of storage and a connection to the Internet.

“If somebody is thinking of using a device without their phone, this is not the product for them,” he said.

Sony plans to start selling the device in the U.S. online and in its own retail stores, with other countries and outlets to be announced later.

Sony isn’t the first to try to crack the intelligent watch category. There are a number of current competitors, including Motorola’s Motoactv and WIMM’s WIMM One. There’s even this cool-looking Kickstarter project.

Before them, Microsoft had its SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) watches, and Fossil had a go at a Palm OS watch, though both were pretty big flops.

Even Apple’s iPod nano has become a timepiece of sorts. Although it doesn’t come with a watchband, such accessories became a popular add-on. Now the device ships with several watch-face options.

[ See post to watch video ]

(Image courtesy of rook76 / Shutterstock.com)

Sony Projects Deeper Loss

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Hiroyuki Kachi — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:02:13 +0000

Sony Corp. slashed its earnings outlook for the fourth time in less than a year, warning that it now expects a ¥520 billion ($6.4 billion) loss for the past fiscal year because of a tax-related charge from continued losses at the Japanese company’s U.S. operations.

The projected loss, more than double the ¥220 billion loss forecast in Sony’s previous outlook in February, would be the deepest so far in the electronics conglomerate’s 65-year history.

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Sony to Cut Estimated 10,000 Jobs

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:58:08 +0000

Sony Corp. plans to reduce its work force by an estimated 10,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its global staff, as part of new Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai’s restructuring plan, people familiar with the matter said Monday.

The cuts could run through the two fiscal years until March 2014, although the final timing has not been settled, the people said.

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No Pain, No Gain: Sony Chief to Outline Strategy April 12

John Paczkowski — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:06:47 +0000

Just how does Sony plan to turn around its business after forecasting a $2.7 billion fiscal net loss, its fourth in a row? We’ll find out on April 12, when Sony’s newly installed CEO Kaz Hirai hosts a special event to outline the company’s strategy.

Hirai has promised “painful” measures to turn Sony around and, presumably, that’s what he’ll be detailing during this event. As he recently told the Telegraph, “there’s a lot to fix [at Sony].” The company’s biggest problem of all: It lacks a unified approach to hardware, software and content. There’s no cohesive ecosystem at a time when companies like Apple have shown that this is exactly what consumers are looking for.

Hirai knows this all too well. And Sony’s plan to address it will be a likely topic of next week’s briefing. “I’ve said all along, whether it’s smartphones or any other device, it’s about the consumer experience, it’s not about the device itself,” Hirai once said. “Having great devices in and of itself? It’s not what the consumer is looking for. We need to bring a great experience.”

Kunimasa Suzuki Named President and CEO of Sony Mobile Communications

John Paczkowski — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:04:32 +0000

On Wednesday morning, Sony tapped Kunimasa Suzuki as president and CEO of Sony Mobile Communications, a division created this year after the Japanese electronics maker’s buyout of Sony Ericsson. Suzuki succeeds Bert Nordberg, who will become Chairman of Sony Mobile on May 16. The move puts the finishing touches on Sony CEO Kaz Hirai’s new “four screens” initiative, a strategy intended to unify and integrate the company’s smartphone, PC, television and tablet product lines.

Paramount, Google Link Up for Movie Rentals

Peter Kafka — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:00:22 +0000

Viacom and Google are locked in a copyright lawsuit that is nearly five years old. But that doesn’t mean the companies can’t do business together.

This morning, for example, Google’s YouTube is announcing a deal to rent movies from Viacom’s Paramount studio. The move will bring some 500 titles to Google, ranging from newish hits like the “Transformers” movies to oldies like “The Godfather” trilogy; users will also be able to rent the movies from Google’s new Google Play hub.

The announcement means that Google, which has been struggling for years to figure out Hollywood, now has rental deals with five of the six big studios: Paramount, Sony, Time Warner’s Warner Bros., Disney, and Comcast’s Universal.

The lone holdout is 20th Century Fox, which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp. All six studios rent their movies via Apple’s iTunes. It’s worth noting that Paramount is one of the few studios that has experimented with direct-to-customer sales and rentals, via its own Web site.

Amazon's Video Library Can Now Be Streamed on the PlayStation 3

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:24:21 +0000

Amazon has partnered with Sony to launch Amazon Instant Video on the PlayStation 3, marking the company’s first partnership with a game console. Other services, like Netflix, work on the Xbox and Nintendo Wii. Amazon customers who pay $79 a year for its Prime delivery service will now be able to stream more than 17,000 TV shows and movies using the PS3. Previously, the videos could be viewed using some set-top boxes, over the Internet and on Amazon’s Kindle tablet.

Even if New iPad Is Hot, Consumer Reports Decides It's Not Bothered

Ina Fried — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:57:57 +0000

After earlier getting worked up about whether the iPad might heat up too much, Consumer Reports says further testing shows the issue isn’t that big a deal, after all.

“Responding to consumer comments on the new device, and to coverage from other reviewers, we also carried out further tests that confirmed the new iPad is warmer in its hottest spots than the iPad 2,” the magazine said on Monday. “But we didn’t find those temperatures to be cause for concern.”

Indeed, the magazine has done something of a 180, and now says the new iPad is tops among tablets.

Also recommended by the magazine were Sony’s Tablet P and Pantech’s water-resistant Element.

Xbox Users Clocking More Hours Gobbling Media Than Gaming Online

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:33:14 +0000

Microsoft’s Xbox is no longer just for hardcore gamers, but rather is beginning to attract a more general audience looking to consume movies, TV and music online.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company said today that for the first time, Xbox Live users are now watching more movies and TV and listening to music than gamers are using it to play online games.

The recent shift is worth noting given the mind-boggling number of hours gamers are willing to spend online destroying opponents on the battlefield or football field.

Microsoft declined to break down the number of hours spent, but as an example, 3.3 million players logged seven million hours on Xbox Live on the first day alone that Activision’s Call of Duty was available back in November.

What’s more, the growth of entertainment is not at the expense of gaming. Online gaming on the Xbox is up over the past year, too. In fact, Xbox Live usage — spanning gaming and entertainment — is up 30 percent year-over-year.

The shift toward entertainment is not completely unexpected, since Microsoft has been investing heavily in turning the console into a more general entertainment device for the living room. Sony’s PlayStation has a similar emphasis and Nintendo’s upcoming console, the Wii U, is expected to support entertainment applications.

In December, Microsoft rolled out a massive software update to the Xbox that allowed users to control the console using the Kinect. As part of the update, it also began to add more than 40 content providers to the console to increase the catalog of live and streamed TV, movies and music.

As previously announced, Xbox today launched voice-controlled TV apps from Comcast and HBO Go in the U.S., and MLB.TV throughout North America. To access these apps, you must be a subscriber, meaning it is not meant as a cable subscription substitute.

Two Screens Aren't Better Than One for Sony Tablet P

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:03:11 +0000

One way to stand out in a crowded category of devices is to employ a novel hardware design. Last year, Sony got decent marks from many reviewers, including me, for an Android tablet called the Tablet S, crafted to look like a magazine, with one thick, rounded vertical edge that made it more comfortable to hold than many other tablets. Now, the company has brought out another Android tablet with an even more radical design, and this one shows the limits of novelty.

[ See post to watch video ]

The new Tablet P, sold in AT&T stores, is a 7-inch long, narrow, hinged device with no exposed display at all. When you open it, twin small screens are revealed. Content can appear on one of the two screens, or be spread across both. It can operate over either a Wi-Fi or a cellular-data connection.

It sounds cool, but the Tablet P has some crucial drawbacks. The most important one is that, to take advantage of its full viewing area by using both screens as a single display, you must put up with a thick, black, plastic bar across the center of whatever you’re viewing. That disruptive scar is the inside of the hinge, where the dual screens meet.

Some apps avoid that absurd situation by cramming all their content into just one screen. But these screens are small, just 5.5 inches diagonally, closer to the area of a large smartphone than Sony’s Tablet S or the iPad, whose screens are about 10 inches. When content is spread across both screens, as it is in the Web browser, the combined display is about 7 inches, but that black bar is present.

To be fair, Sony has modified or created some apps so they take intelligent advantage of the dual screens, without the black bar to annoy you. For instance, the email app uses the bottom screen to list your messages and the top one to show whichever message you’re reading. Similarly, the stock video player, and many games, use the bottom screen for control buttons and the top for the content.

But at launch, there are only about 40 such specially adapted apps out of the hundreds of thousands of Android apps the Tablet P can run. Sony says more will be coming, but I suspect that will depend on how many of these foldout tablets it can sell. And I can’t recommend this one.

Sony has built-in on-screen buttons that can switch some apps from single-screen to combined-screen mode. But this isn’t available in some common, crucial apps, like the Web browser and Google Maps, which must be run in combined-screen mode, with the bar in the middle. You can’t run different apps in each screen, only separate parts of the same app.

Because it folds up, the Tablet P is much more portable than iPad-size tablets, or even 7-inch tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire. It fits in a pants or jacket pocket or a modest-size purse. But when closed, its surfaces are rounded and have an overall thickness of a whopping 1.03 inches — much thicker than a typical smartphone or tablet — and so created a bulge.

There are other downsides. The Tablet P is relatively costly for a small tablet. Sony sells it online for $550, more than the base iPad and much more than the $199, 7-inch Fire. AT&T sells it for $400, but that price requires a two-year contract costing either $35 or $50 a month, depending on how much data you want.

This new tablet comes with a paltry amount of memory. It is packaged with a 2 gigabyte removable memory card and 4 gigabytes of internal storage, of which just 1.8 gigabytes is available to the user. That is a total of less than 4GB, versus 16GB for the base iPad. You can buy a larger memory card, up to 32GB, but that adds about $30 in cost.

Battery life also is weak. In my standard battery test, where I play videos back to back with the screen at 75 percent brightness and both Wi-Fi and cellular connections turned on, the Tablet P lasted just 5 hours and 16 minutes, about half the battery life of an iPad. The battery is removable and a spare can be bought for $70.

And the cellular-data connection isn’t the fastest type. While it is labeled as 4G, it doesn’t use the best 4G technology, called LTE. In my tests, in the Washington, D.C., area, the Tablet P averaged just 3.7 megabits per second over cellular, versus more than 12 mbps for a new iPad running on AT&T’s LTE network.

Finally, there is the hardware. I found the screens and cameras were OK, but the speaker was very weak. And, in the few days I was using it, a little door covering the USB port fell off and the top cover, which I had removed to insert a cellular SIM card, kept coming loose.

Portability is a virtue, and some companies are working on flexible screens that could bend without exposing a hinge. But in my view, the Tablet P doesn’t cut it.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

Turntable.fm Gets Its Label Deals Done

Peter Kafka — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:02:41 +0000

Turntable.fm, the digital music start-up that got a whole lot of buzz last summer, now has deals with all four of the big music labels.

The company was slated to announce the pacts — with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Music Group and Sony — at the South by Southwest conference today. CNET reported on Turntable’s Warner deal last week, and I think that report helped accelerate today’s announcement.

The fact that Turntable was able to get deals done in less than a year — the company is the result of a well-documented pivot from something called Stickybits — says a lot about the newfound flexibility on the part of the music business. Especially since Turntable has carved out a new business model — basically a hybrid between “on-demand” services like Spotify and “radio” services like Pandora.

The flip side is that the buzz and momentum Turntable was generating last summer has gone away. That may be due mostly to Spotify’s U.S. launch, which by all accounts has been a huge success. But it may also be because not that many people want to listen to other people play music.

I do, though, so I hope the deals give Turntable the ability to turn things around. Right now, when I visit the service I don’t see any of my pals there. And while I’m sure I could find some cool people playing cool songs there if I dug around for a while, I don’t want to do a lot of digging.

One thing the deals won’t do is give Turntable the ability to open its doors to users outside the U.S. But it does give the company a better chance of getting international deals done.

That would give Turntable a leg up on rival Pandora. But there are a gazillion legal ways to get your hands on digital music, for very little money these days — from Spotify to Rhapsody to iTunes Match to Deezer. Getting heard above that din will be a challenge.

U.S. Videogame Sales Sank Deeper in February

Lauren Goode — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:00:14 +0000

In February, U.S. retail sales of videogames fell 20 percent from a year ago, according to market research group NPD.

Despite some industry gains from January to February, overall sales totaled $1.06 million last month, down from $1.33 billion year over year; software sales fell 23 percent to $464 million, and hardware sales dropped 18 percent to $381.4 million.

February’s best-selling software title was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, from Activision Blizzard.

While most hardware platforms posted declines year over year, “all current-generation platforms improved sales over January 2012 by more than 50 percent,” NPD said in a note.

A consistent bright spot has been the Microsoft Xbox, which was the best-selling hardware platform for the seventh month in a row. Some 426,000 Xbox units were sold in February, marking the 12th consecutive month Xbox has held more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.

And all eyes were on the Sony PlayStation Vita handheld gaming device, which came to market in late February. Only four days of retail sales for the PS Vita were included in this reporting period, but the device gave overall hardware unit sales a month-over-month boost. Not including the PS Vita, hardware unit sales increased by 62 percent over January, NPD said; with PS Vita sales included, the increase was 87 percent.

“More than 1.2 million PS Vita units have been sold globally since launch,” Patrick Seybold, senior director of communications at Sony Computer Entertainment America, said in a statement. “Customer satisfaction rates are very high and momentum will continue as gamers get their hands on a deep lineup of blockbuster titles that take advantage of PS Vita’s unique features, including cross-platform play with the PlayStation 3.”

In January, the videogame industry saw a double-digit decline in physical software sales, as my colleague Tricia Duryee reports, following a number of noteworthy game launches ahead of the holiday season.

With a New Design, Vevo Asks Music Video Fans to Stick Around

Peter Kafka — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:00:25 +0000

People who visit Vevo to check out a music video end up sticking around, on average, to watch one more. Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff would like them to watch 10 or 12, so he’s redesigned his site to make it stickier.

It’s a pretty slick overhaul, or at least it seemed to be when I took a preview spin. But it’s up now, so you can see for yourself, which also means I don’t need to spend much time describing it.

I do want to point out one feature. Like every other Web site in the world, Vevo wants to make itself more social, by making it easier to tell your pals what you’re watching, and easier to see what your friends are watching. No surprise there. What’s interesting to me is that when you log in to the site using your Facebook credentials, Vevo will have already “socialized” you — even if you’ve never used the site and none of your friends have, either.

Vevo can do that by tapping into the music data that Facebook has already compiled about you, based on songs and bands you’ve “Liked,” and any music you’ve played via Facebook-connected services like Spotify.

I know that Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” mechanics — where every action you take on the site is broadcast/spammed out to all your friends — built up an important data warehouse for Mark Zuckerberg.

But I hadn’t quite processed that he was willing to share it with outside developers. Who will, of course, be that much more interested in working with Facebook, for that very reason.

Speaking of Facebook: One reason it’s so important for Caraeff to make his site stickier is that his joint venture, which is co-owned by Sony, Universal Music, and other investors, is dependent on Google’s YouTube for the majority of its traffic. In the U.S., YouTube generates about two-thirds of Vevo’s views.

Caraeff is starting to renegotiate a deal with YouTube that expires at the end of the year, and it makes sense for both sides to make it work. But Caraeff also wants options, which is why he is talking to Facebook, among other suitors.

Those would-be partners would have to offer Caraeff traffic and revenue guarantees to make a deal work. But even with those in place, it would be even more crucial for Vevo to have a standalone site that users really cared about.

Caraeff would be overhauling Vevo, in any case. But if the new look makes his site that much more attractive to partners, even better.