Sony made a splash today with the announcement of 2 hard drive based digital music players. And while initial reports, like the one linked above, state the device will playback MP3, WAV, and WMA file formats, the men over at Engadget (the best Gadget blog on the net) have done some investigating that comes to a different conclusion. According to this posting, it appears you will have to convert your MP3, WAV, and WMA files to Sony's ATRAC3 format.
I have been saying for a long time that I think Sony is out of touch with consumers (see postings on their Wireless TV products, and their Music Store) but this takes it to a new level. Does Sony not realize that music enthusiasts who would be willing to spend $400+ on a portable music player already have thousands of digital songs, and they don't want to take the hours necessary to convert them to the ATRAC3 format. Not only will converting the songs be a pain, but given that you can't play the ATRAC3 format on other devices, you will now have to store and maintain all your songs in 2 formats! This is a company that needs to start thinking about CONSUMERS, and not format/standards wars.
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