Matsuura Got Rhythm: The State Of NanaOn-Sha's Founder

Well, I heard that -- My friend told me this way; he said: "Sony is releasing this amazing program where you can stream audio from other devices, like the PlayStation 3, but it's not an MP3 player, it's this weird egg." It's just, why didn't they make it something normal that you just listen to?

MM: The electronic companies have to find the new appeal to the market. The game industry is a very stable, very good market already.

Although it's changing a lot now, so it's not stable for everyone.

MM: Yeah, that's true. Also, there are many people that also realize that Nintendo's strategy is very successful. And many other companies can't make the similar type of sequel on the [new] hardware anymore. So, anyway, maybe five years from now, the game industry will be very different.

Yeah. Well I wonder, do you think that -- just speculation -- do you think that Sony and Microsoft are going to create something to try to compete with Wii?

MM: Yes, I think so. But, maybe not the same strategy. Very different aspects.

Yeah, it could be that Microsoft will try to use Live Arcade as its competitive edge. Maybe.

MM: Yeah. Personally, I want to have an Xbox laptop. I need one. This kind of laptop [taps at laptop on table], a very high spec machine, is very heavy. And still the video is less than the Xbox 360. So, I need a very small laptop with Xbox. Very portable. The DS is very small -- and smart, but it doesn't necessarily [work] like that.

PSP is, anyway... they have to take out the UMD, anyway.

Everyone agrees, they won't do it.

MM: No one needs UMD.

No. All these companies like to create -- even, you know, Apple, and Sony especially -- like to create specific formats, so that they can control the media as well. So that's why we have Blu-ray, that's why we have HD-DVD; all these competing media formats. That's why iTunes doesn't let you move your files back and forth -- only one way.

So, it's really all about control, but what's funny is that these larger companies are trying to keep all the control one way, but everything that's really successful -- like YouTube, like social network sites like Mixi or MySpace -- those are so successful because control goes both ways. And mostly it's the user having the control, and doing what they want. So it's just interesting, because it seems like that kind of model that they're trying so hard, and spending so much money to try to control the media, it's really going to screw them over. Especially when YouTube is more popular than Blu-Ray --

MM: Yeah, that's right.

And YouTube looks terrible. It looks awful. It looks absolutely terrible, and the audio is aways out of sync, but nobody cares. That says something. Nobody cares. I mean, people want Blu-ray. They want high definition things.

MM: I think that we need the Blu-ray -- but not [necessarily] Blu-ray, HD DVD is OK. I mean the very high quality environment is required. Yeah, I'm jealous with all the graphic people, that have a very high quality environment like this, and it's not so cheap, but so expensive. But for audio, everybody is OK with iPod already, but iPod's sound is ugly.

Yeah, and even iTunes, its highest compression is 320kbps, and that's not good enough.

MM: So, it's very strange. The people are putting the iPod on their stereos, but Blu-ray's sound quality is much higher. So for the audio environment, that kind of environment is better sometimes.