The amount of time that Sony has taken to get QRIOCITY off the ground is practically unthinkable.
The Qriocity online store launched some time around February this year in America and has only just seen its launch in Europe. If it takes them almost a whole year to bring an online service to a different continent, it kinda makes you wonder how long it will take to go worldwide, considering that is what they are planning, however given previous efforts on certain product releases that is questionable. And also my hope for an Australian release is also being erased quite quickly especially now that when going to Qriocity.com, i am greeted with a 'Qriocity is not available in your country' notice rather than 'coming soon' as shown previously.
I briefly remember when Sony had first attempted an online store, to go against iTunes, that store was called Connect and was a music store fill with a limited variety of tracks all in a proprietary ATRAC format, that incidentally could only played on Sony Walkmans.
It is fortunate though that Sony has learnt from their proprietary fest, naturally one would probably learn from a mistake that cost them the entirety of their MP3 player market share and the closing of a music store.
But, Sony now has another problem, and that is mass product confusion globally and inefficient product releases! If it takes another five years for Sony to get Qriocity off the ground and to go international just like iTunes, then iTunes will be so far ahead! And by then Sony might give up with Qriocity (which is imminent at the rate they are going) and try an online store for a third time, which by that time all brand loyalty and confidence will have been erased and regaining a new customer base will be most difficult and time consuming.
Can it really be that hard to sell movies and music digitally worldwide? Apple did it with iTunes and it surely didn't take them a year to get it to two continents. I'm not sure what it's showing about Sony, whether they're not trying at all and have no confidence in this new service, or whether they're just inefficient and incapable of working in unity on a global scale. And I believe the latter is the reason, because it shows in certain product releases too, why is the Internet TV only in America? Why is the new A series Walkman not in America and only available as 16gb and 32gb models in Australia while it is available as 64gb models elsewhere? Why is the Y series Vaio in Australia a ULV notebook but is capable of having an i3 and i5 processor in other countries?
This is the product confusion and uncertainty that I mentioned earlier, and its not just hurting consumers, but its hurting Sony too, if Sony announces a new product, consumers are less likely to wait for release internationally as they would be uncertain whether it will come out at all, and will most likely buy something else similar, but from a different brand.
I guess, the one shining light with Qriocity is that it is well underway in America at least, with a vast collection of films and a promising looking Music service coming up (release still could be ages away though :P).
I trust Sony will put a lot more effort into this new service than they have with certain other things in the past, if they chuck a lot of money into marketing and getting the Qriocity name out there and continue to add more services like maybe an App Store, eBook store and increase product compatibility (integration with Walkman and Sony Ericsson phones) or something then Sony's new network solution most definitely has potential to ride with the big guns in online services out there.
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