'Father of PlayStation' says Sony blew it on media players

'Father of PlayStation' says Sony blew it on media players

"Sony missed out on potential sales from MP3 players and other gadgets because it was overly proprietary about music and entertainment content, the head of Sony Corp.'s video-game unit acknowledged Thursday.

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said he and other Sony employees have been frustrated for years with management's reluctance to introduce products like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, mainly because the Tokyo company had music and movie units that were worried about content rights."

You don't often see that kind of admission from the senior management of the tech cos but their employees have been bashing their heads against the internal brick wall on this for many years. One told me at a conference last year, when I gave a talk with a similar to message to Cory on drm, (though not nearly as elegant), that I had been saying the kinds of things the engineers in her organisation had been wanting to say for years but were too scared to do so.