dont you think its pretty sad that at a time when the music industry is trying to overthrow illegal p2p traffic that sony cant just swallow their pride and get on with trying to promote legal dloads. not that i am complaining or anything lol

Sony´s business is in electronics, and if iTunes grows huge in Japan you can bet Sony will be losing a lot of money when people start buying iPods instead of Walkmen.

So it´s not just about pride.

I'll start by saying that I am a fan of Sony and I can't stand Apple, or anything from them. Sony's big mistake was making their epipment use the Atrac format which sucks. I also don't like any format or service that makes me check files in and out and only alows me to play them from certain computers. If I paid for it, it's mine and I'll play it wherever I damn well please. Since no one else uses the Atrac format and thier jukebox software converted EVERYTHING into it, it is a royal pain in the ass. Not to mention that it sounds like crap. I'm sorry but 128 bit mp3s sound like crap too. Frm what I can find on Apple's site, that's all the ipod can handle. For now I'll stick with my mp3 cd's that encoded at the very least in VBR (variable bitrate) or the full 320. Yes I know I can't fit quite as many songs on the disc, but they sound a whole lot better. If Sony would do away with the Atrac and the checking in and out I'd be very happy, but that probably won't happen anytime soon...

Well I kind of disagree that Atrac is a bad format, especially in low bitrates Atrac sounds superior to MP3 (according to some peole at least, I´m not sure I´m qualified to do a listening test).

But yeah, you´re right... Sony needs to further develop their software.
The newest version of Sonic Stage brings a few improvements but everyone still wants to see better support for other formats by Sony. It would probably benefit their sales even. But then Atrac would probably die out, and that´s something they don´t want to happen.

I used to live in Japan and acquired a taste for Jpop (favorites, Amuro Namie, Koda Kumi, SPEED- a little old I know- and recently M-Flo.

Since moving back home I have been having trouble keeping up to date with he music. My girlfriend is getting a little tired of sending me stuff i guess :(

I wanted to get stuff from the iTunes store in Japan but you need a Japanese credit card and address. I could just use my old address I suppose but I don't have a Japanese credit card.
I did find a site this week that sells the Japanese itunes cards and you can use a credit card from any country or Paypal. http://www.jpopmp3s.com
They are pretty good. I got the card within a couple of hours and it worked fine. They have instructions on setting up with help for what to put for an address in Japan (which I didn't need).
You have to join- I don't really know why, but it is free to join so no worries I guess.