Planes, trains and automobiles are where digital video wants to do some boredom busting.
Scores of companies are betting there’s gold in helping go-go commuters and road warriors catch the latest episodes of 24 and Grey’s Antatomy. Apple downloads movies to iPods. Cell phone carriers stream TV shows to handsets. Sling Media’s Slingbox connects users to their home TVs from any Web-enabled handheld.
But a company uniquely positioned just a few years ago to be among the front-runners in the nascent mobile-video category is conspicuously missing, said James McQuivey, a Forrester Research analyst. Sounding a little like Marlon Brando, McQuivey argues that Sony, with the PlayStation Portable (PSP), should have been a contender. He notes that Apple’s iTunes has sold 50 million TV shows, seized a huge market lead and proven people will watch video on small screens.
“The thing is, Sony could have been all this,” McQuivey said. “The Sony PSP is one of the best portable entertainment media devices that anyone has come up with in years. It has a relatively big screen, plays video beautifully, has good storage and audio. It could have been the first big mobile carrier for TV shows and movies.”
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