Sony Ericsson tunes up mobile music store

Sony Ericsson kicked off this whole mobile music downloading business early with its Walkman phones and PlayNow service, offering first ringtones then games and full music tracks.

Since then it’s been outmanoeuvred by its Scandinavian foe, Nokia, with its Music Store and 8GB N95.

Now Sony Eric’s fighting back with a full revamp of PlayNow, dubbed PlayNow Arena. It’ll have full tracks from Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI – a total of five million new songs to add to its mobile library.

That leaves only Universal Music Group missing from the big four, so no Killers, Oasis, U2 or, er, Mariah Carey. But there will be plenty of support from indies and the great unsigned thanks to PlayNow Uncut, where you can find the likes of Big Linda and Mando Diao. What do you mean you haven’t heard of them? That’s the point.

Expect added touches like free song previews and TrackID – the company’s track name-identifying app. Sweden gets the service first, but we’ll be in by June. Rock on.

Essentials

Contact: Sony Ericsson

Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home