There is nothing like buying a car and being charged to watch movies and play games, but if Sony have their way that’s exactly what owners of a Sony EV could be doing after 2025.
Overnight Sony has confirmed that they are most likely to launch a high-end “expensive” model featuring entertainment such as movies and videogames for which owners will pay extra, the company’s chief executive said.
Speaking at a Honda plant in the USA, Sony Group Corp.’s Kenichiro Yoshida said that Sony and Honda who back in March formed a joint venture to sell an electric vehicle will start manufacturing in 2025.
Mr. Yoshida said the car market would increasingly shift to a service model where customers pay regularly for software downloads and entertainment.
The cost could be as low as $10 a month, owners of a PS 5 may get a discount. If you want full “self-driving this could cost over $100 a month”.
Mr. Yoshida said the Honda-Sony joint venture, currently a 50-50 arrangement, could eventually become independent and work with more players in the car industry.
The car business “is shifting toward EVs, and at the same time they’ll be hooked up to a network, so they’re being turned into a tech product,” Mr. Yoshida said.
He drew an analogy with Sony’s PlayStation business, which in addition to selling the $500 PlayStation 5 hardware has a subscription product called PlayStation Plus with multiplayer services and games to download.
The Wall Street Journal said that currently PlayStation Plus had 47.4 million subscribers.
Currently, drivers’ ability to enjoy a Sony movie or videogame is limited by the need to keep their eyes on the road, but Mr. Yoshida expressed hope that full autonomous driving would spread in the next few years.
He said that for video gamers in their car seats, Sony might use what it has learned from its haptic controllers for the PlayStation 5, which convey vibrations and other sensory feedback.