Sony has confirmed that it plans to add MP3 support to its music players, a move that will allow the company to be more competitive with rivals such as Apple, who already sell products that support MP3 playback. Until now, Sony has players have been relying on the company's proprietary format, ATRAC. The move from depending on the Atrac music file format to allowing MP3 playback will begin with flash memory based players the company has said. They have not confirmed how and when products will add the MP3 support.
Sony has been losing ground in the digital music business lately, as all major companies seem to want to take as much profit as they can from it. Apple Computers iPod product already has support for the MP3 format as well as its own proprietary DRM based format, FairPlay. Adding the support to its products may boost the company’s sales as Sony is already a household name worldwide and would probably be the first choice make for someone not familiar with the products being sold in the digital music market. MP3 is also by far the most used digital audio format, and so far seems to be the preferred format of the general public.
Source:
News.com
Source:
News.com
