PlayNow was Sony Ericsson's download service for media that included music, games, ringtones, wallpapers and themes. It was introduced in February 2004 as a way for owners of SE phones to listen to and directly purchase ringtones. It was rolled out into 32 countries. The Sony Ericsson S700 was the first Sony Ericsson phone to come pre-loaded with PlayNow.
PlayNow was expanded in mid-2008 into the browser-based portal, PlayNow arena. This first went live in the Nordic countries in August 2008 and offered additional types of free and premium content, including 1 million DRM-free tracks from record companies such as Sony Music, Warner Music, and EMI.[1] It also enabled the dual download of MP3 music tracks, with one higher quality MP3 track downloaded direct to PC, and one lower quality track to the phone.
PlayNow arena is organised on a per country basis, and is compatible with a wide range of Sony Ericsson phones. It also supports various thirdparty Windows Media DRM-enabled devices.
Part of the PlayNow service was the TrackID mobile music recognition service. Using this system, you could have recorded several seconds of music on your phone to find out the artist and track. Where available, you could have also purchased the identified track direct from PlayNow. TrackID worked via the Sony-owned Gracenote identification system.
In September 2008, Sony Ericsson announced PlayNow plus; a paid for subscription service. It was launched in Sweden at the cost of 99 Swedish crowns (around $15) per month on the W902 Walkman phone through operator Telenor.[2]
PlayNow plus was bundled and billed via a mobile operator and enabled unlimited downloads of DRM-controlled music, as well as PC playback via Omnifone's music player.[3] Pre-loaded music offers were also planned for subsequent PlayNow plus-enabled phones.
In May 2009, Sony Ericsson announced PlayNow arena with movies.[4] This was a bundled out-of-the-box services that enabled users to download up to 60 specially formatted movies per year. Organised on a per country basis, a total of 15 movies (new and classics) were to be available at any one time with four replacement titles added every month. The movies were accessed via a PC and side loaded on the phone via USB. They could have been watched as many times as possible for up to 90 days. They couldn't be played on any other device. PlayNow arena with movies were to launch in June 2009 with the W995 Walkman phone in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.[5]
As of Sony's complete acquisition in 2011, this service is no longer available, and has been replaced with Sony Entertainment Network.
It is a single internal entity overseeing all wholly owned development studios within SIE. It is responsible for the creative and strategic direction of development and production of all computer entertainment software by all SIE–owned studios, all of which is typically produced exclusively for the PlayStation family of consoles.
With the launch of the PlayStation 5 in 2020, Worldwide Studios brands all releases be it internal or externally developed under the "PlayStation Studios" label.[3]
History
SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE Worldwide Studios) was established on September 14, 2005, with Phil Harrison being appointed as president.[4] On May 16, 2008, Shuhei Yoshida became president.[5] In April 2016, Sony's Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI) divisions merged, creating SIE Worldwide Studios.[5] Hermen Hulst succeeded Shuhei Yoshida as president of SIE Worldwide Studios on November 7, 2019, with Yoshida being delegated to lead Sony's indie development.[6]
Naughty Dog is home to the ICE Team, one of Sony's Worldwide Studios central technology groups. The term ICE originally stands for Initiative for a Common Engine which describes the original purpose of the group.[25] The ICE Team focuses on creating core graphics technologies for Sony's worldwide first party published titles, including low-level game engine components, graphics processing pipelines, supporting tools, and graphics profiling and debugging tools. The ICE Team also supports third party developers with a suite of engine components, and a graphics analysis, profiling, and debugging tool for the RSX. Both enable developers to get better performance out of PlayStation hardware.[26][27]
XDev
XDev Europe, established in 2000 and based in Liverpool, England,[7] collaborates with independent development studios across Europe and other PAL territories to publish content to PlayStation platforms all over the world. XDev has helped to create and publish, titles such as the LittleBigPlanet, Buzz!, MotorStorm and Invizimals series, Super Stardust HD, Heavenly Sword, Heavy Rain, Beyond, Tearaway and Resogun. Partners include independent developers such as Quantic Dream, Magenta Software, Climax Studios, Novarama, Supermassive Games and Sumo Digital, as well as SCE subsidiaries such as Media Molecule and Guerrilla Games. In addition to funding projects, XDev offer full production, project management and game design support. Titles are also supported with community management, online production and dedicated outsourcing management facilities. XDev work directly with Marketing and PR teams in all Sony territories to promote and publish games worldwide.[28][29]
