For decades, Apple and Sony have been fighting to conquer the consumer space.

In the early 80s, 90s, Sony’s strength was in The living Room (TV, HiFi….) Then, step by step introduce digital features and communication through the various elements (such as memory-stick, firewire, computers) to bring digital into the Living Room.

Apple has similar strategy but from the opposite approach. From a strong computer angle, Apple introduced step-by-step multimedia features and what they called ‘the digital Hub’, where every portables devices or multimedia equipments are to be connected through the computer.

Today, the war has started again with the recent announcement of the two new flagship toys from respective brands:

iPhone 3G S vs PSP Go.

We are not going into a technical description of those products; you can refer to the two brands websites here, here, here or here

However, let’s have a quick overview of the features and their strategic / consumer impacts.

iPhone 3G S

DRAMeXchange has forecast that shipments will reach 9 millions in 2H09, but the achievement deeply relies on a deal between Apple and international operators.

Despite all the hype related to the products, I am a bit disappointed by the new announced features. In a summary, iPhone 3G S is bit better and faster with more friendly features like compass, voice control, a camera for video and the most important one, MMS support. Additional features like improved search are thrown into the box at the same time.
-This is not a revolution but an improvement, when we would have maybe expected a new version (smaller like an iPhone nano) or bigger in case you are looking for iPhone tablet for example.

PSP GO

This is a complete new model that changes drastically Sony business model and product. Sony aims to revitalize its lagging sales with PSP Go.

No more UMD but 16GB storage to download games and soon music + movies from the PlayStation store. Additional features like Bluetooth support and sliding control panel are part of the renewal. Best of it, the game will be launched with Little Big Planet, Grand Turismo and MGS !!!

The battle has been move to the portable field. However, this time, tactics have been inverted….:=)
Apple owned the space and introduced more multimedia features into their product (iPhone/iPod range) with features application, games support…
Sony in parallel, is coming from the game side and is joining Apple in the middle by throwing in multimedia features, downloadable apps in future + movie.

Sony is taking a very risky but ‘potentially’ profitable approach and want to ride on the ‘Apple store apps’ wagon. By introducing a streaming device, they will most probably get in conflict with the retail channel but hope to get extra revenue and limit cost of distribution.

It is unclear at this point of time how consumer will react to the loss of UDM (for those who have lots of discs) and how the regional legislation will be implemented. We hope that, from a consumer point of view, it will focus on our needs….