In the midst of the Apple vs NBC spat, I almost missed this one (thanks Trish). Seems there is more blood on the iTunes play button. After Sony’s three-year effort to beat Apple’s iTunes Music Store they are calling it quits and closing the Sony Connect Online Music Store.

In its place, Sony is adding Microsoft’s Windows Media technology to its music players and allowing consumers to download copy-protected content from numerous Windows Media-compatible music stores, including those from Napster, Audible.com and WalMart. Sony will also distribute Windows Media Player 11 software with their new players. This represents a big change in the direction of Sony’s portable audio business. While Sony created this sector with the huge success of the Walkman in 1979, it has not made a dent in the iPod and iTunes Music Store. Well they are in good company, just ask all the others that “were” like Virgin Music, Urge, MSN Music, AOL Music, etc.

Sony’s first portable music players weren’t even compatible with the MP3 format and would only play Sony’s proprietary ATRAC format — something that didn’t find favor with consumers. MP3 was eventually added, but not until late 2004. Sony’s players have remained locked to Sony’s online music store for music purchases — until this re-direction.

Two players to be launched in the U.S. by Sony. The new NWZ-S610 player is a smaller and lower-spec version of the NWZ-A810 Walkman that hit Europe in April. Both have QVGA resolution (240 pixels by 320 pixels) resolution screen but the S610 is a little smaller at 1.8-inches versus a 2-inch screen on the A810.

MPEG4 and H.264 video is supported as are the Windows Media, AAC and MP3 audio formats and JPEG images. Probably making the DRM-Free (iTunes Plus) tracks on the iTunes Store compatible also. Both players will come in 2G-byte, 4G-byte and 8G-byte capacity models and prices will range from US$120 to $210 for the S610 series and $140 to $230 for the A810 series.

This is just another example or how DRM killed the yet another online music store. What do the people who bought tracks from the Sony Connect Store do in the long run? Will these tracks still play if eventually Sony stops supporting the proprietary ATRAC format? Will they allow you to convert them? I doubt it.

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