Sony prepares expansion of PlayStation Network for video and music

Sony is planning to launch a subscription-based music and video service at the IFA tech show in Berlin today - the biggest consumer technology show in Europe.

Photo by pusgums on Flickr. Some rights reserved

The FT reports that the service would allow users to download music and video to their PS3 and PSP consoles (which are already internet-connected for game and film downloads on PlayStation Network) and then share it between Sony devices including Vaio computers, Walkman music players, Blu-ray players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

This launch hasn't exactly come out of the blue. Sony paid $260m (£169m) for the file identification technology Gracenote in 2008 and started building the subscription service in 2009, when Sony president Howard Stringer stated that 90% of Sony products would be internet connected and connect to each other by 2011.

In February Stringer described PlayStation Network as Sony's "not-so-secret weapon", claiming it had 40 million registered users worldwide, reported Eurogamer. The Gracenote acquisition has been used to unify content offerings between various sprawling Sony divisions, and produced PlayStation Network.

He told the Mobile World Congress that Europe is a particularly strong market for PSN, as proved by its launch in November last year in the UK, France, Germany and Spain. "In its first five days alone, despite the struggling European economy, revenue from those four countries was 40% of the worldwide revenues for PSN's video delivery service – a testament to how critical the European market will continue to be."

The Network expansion follows last month's launch of a new 320GB and 160GB PS3, replacing the 250GB amd 120GB models, plus the annnouncement in May that Sony would be partnering with internet cinema service Mubi for PS3 users from October.