Sony Prepping a “Four Screen” Strategy that May Include PS3 and Vita to Rival iOS

Joel Taveras November 11, 2011 2:35 AM EST

While the tech world holds their collective breath as they await for the highly speculated “siri-powered” TV from Apple, one that the late Steve Jobs himself has hinted at, other companies already in that competitive space aren’t exactly resting on their laurels while the Cupertino based company moves in on their territory.

Among them is Sony, who’s TV business alone is expected to lose 1 billion dollars in the current fiscal year, is looking for something to bring some new found life, one that will lift that area of the company out of the red and into the black again. In an effort to stay competitive in the space, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer described to The Wall Street Journal that the company has “a tremendous amount of R&D going into a different kind of TV set.”

Stringer addresses the success of Apple and their iconic mobile phone by saying “The beauty of the iPhone is it’s really well organized.” And with that idea in mind, the electronics giant has it’s eyes set on a “four screen” strategy. One that will bridge the gap of network services across a line of products in Sony’s portfolio, whether they be tablet computers, personal computers, mobile phones, and TV’s.

Sony has already begun to lay down the foundation on the PlayStation 3 through it’s Qriocity services. Just how far they take those kinds of services and spread them around is still up in the air. Is this a brand new begining of a new content delivery platform for the company? I guess we’ll have to wait until CES in Las Vegas to find out the answer to that one. Either way, it’s certainly a welcome change in philosophy for a company that as of late has been putting an emphasis on software over hardware, something that they should have been doing a long time ago.