Music Unlimited confirmed for PSP2
Hits PSP "in a matter of weeks".
Music Unlimited, Sony's cloud based music subscription service currently available on the PlayStation 3, will be available on the PlayStation Portable 2, codenamed the Next Generation Portable.
And it will be available on the PlayStation Portable "in a matter of weeks", Sony confirmed to Eurogamer this afternoon.
Music Unlimited has a whopping six million songs. Two options are available. The basic plan offers genre-specific and era-specific channels of non-stop music. The premium service adds on-demand access to all songs in the library and additional channels with new music. The basic plan costs £3.99 or €3.99 a month. Premium sets you back £9.99 or €9.99 a month.
It's part of Qriocity, which aims to link all of Sony's network-enabled consumer electronics products and shares the same base as the PlayStation Network that links Sony's gaming devices.
"The heart of the offering here is that with the one account you can access this music on your TV, your PS3, your laptop, your Blu-ray player, and have your music follow you wherever you go, rather than having to download all of your music into a device and make that device go with you everywhere," Shawn Layden, executive vice president and CEO of Sony Network Entertainment, told Eurogamer.
"You can see that in the gaming world, because you can pull down PSP games across a PS3 and associate that with your portable player. You can create your account in your country home on your PS3 and access the same content you purchase on your other PS3 home. Associated sharing is already happening.
"What we're trying to do at Sony Network Entertainment is bring all those different content domains into a more comprehensive space for the user, so you don't have to go chasing around in three or four different directions to find that.
"If we can bring it all together with one wallet, one sign in, one password, and give you access to music, movies, games etc, that's a better value proposition for the user.
"All of us want more simplicity in our lives."
Sony has already discussed the concept of "asynchronous gaming" when it comes to the link between the PlayStation 3 and the NGP, due out at the end of the year.
The idea is that players will be able to pull from the cloud their game profiles for use on multiple devices, theoretically beginning an experience on PS3 and continuing it on PSP2.
But Sony has similar plans for non-gaming forms of entertainment, including music and video.
"We will make it happen," Layden said on the subject of Music Unlimited on PSP2. "There are still very few details that have come out in the marketplace about the launch. The folks at Sony Computer Entertainment will have a big reveal of exactly what the scope of that entire feature set is going to be.
"But yes, our services need to be available on that device. It's a very powerful device and it would be an incredibly good platform for us."
Music Unlimited is already on the PSP's XMB. "We will see that functionality come live on the PSP in a matter of weeks," Layden confirmed.
And it's also coming to Android devices, including the Xperia Play, "this year".
"The idea is to make your PlayStation ID your ubiquitous sign-on wherever you go and also allow you to trade off the same wallet," Layden added, "so you don't have to charge up different wallets here for that, different wallets here for that."