I wholeheartedly agree with nismo96's take on this and think there may be slight cause for alarm regarding the future of MD if not in Europe definitely the US. The Walkman group has suffered, etc… … those who push Sony's proprietary technology -- such as Minidiscs and the Atrac music-encoding system. These two paraphrased excerpts from the above quote say to me that part of the reason Sony has suffered so greatly stems from the “push” of their proprietary technologies such as Minidisc AND Atrac… not Minidisc that USES or SUPPORTS Atrac. Other devices not proprietary to Sony such as HDD players and MP3 players that used Atrac were completely absent from that negative statement. Whether it is entirely true or not that MD and Atrac are to blame does not so much concern me as does the “perception” that MD and Atrac are the culprits. I think it is more accurate to state that Atrac alone and of itself is the reason for a great deal of Sony's loss of share in the portable music market. In any light it does seem to cast some concern that the insistence from Sony to continue with MD is in someway responsible for the overall downward spiral of Sony’s Walkman line. QUESTION: does anybody know Howard Stringer’s position on MD at Sony? Does he love the format, hate it? That being said, I thought the MZ-S1 was going to be my last MD unit and that I would wait to see (beyond iPod and other HDD players) what the future held BUT I think the new HI-MD players are gorgeous and I will be one of the first in line to get one of the new units... and I'm in m forties. Just goes to show that you're never too old to try something entirely new! Take that demographics!
