Sony plans five new Walkman players

Not wishing to give Apple all our attention when it comes to digital music innovations (even though most of the rest of the media do), perhaps a few lines are in order to plug the new MP3 players being planned by Sony (remember them?). Sony will launch five new digital Walkman devices before the end of the year, two hard disk devices that carry 6GB and 20GB of content respectively, and three flash based players. Word has it these Walkmans will have a distinctly different design than their predecessors in a bid to capture the fashion conscious iPod user's attention. The new players coincide with something of a revamp over at Sony's download platform Connect (remember them?). The SonicStage software is out of the window, and a new 'drag n drop' functionality is being added to the download service, whatever that means. Sony are still hopeful they can win a decent share of the digital music space as the whole download thing goes mainstream, either via the Walkman franchise, or via the PlayStation Portable, preferably both. Remains to be see if they can - though pre-Christmas sales this year should provide something of an indication.