Sizes And Pricing for Sony Google TV Family Leaked
Many of our readers out there are pretty excited about the Sony Google TV. We've written about it nearly a dozen times and it's basically a television with an Intel processor and the ability to fully surf the web (including flash sites).
Context & Ripple Effects
Google TV had already been framed in earlier coverage of the platform as a way to bring full web browsing, including Flash sites, onto the television screen. Sony’s product was also scheduled for an October 12 unveiling, making leaked configuration and price details an early test of how it would package that proposition.
The reported sizes and prices are unconfirmed, but they matter because they move the conversation from Google TV’s capabilities to the cost of buying it as a Sony television. Intel is the named processor supplier inside that consumer-electronics bet.
First-order effects
- The rumored pricing gives prospective Sony buyers a preliminary value benchmark before the planned unveiling, while Sony loses some control over how its range is positioned.
- Intel gains visibility as the processor supplier for a television product being evaluated on consumer retail pricing rather than PC specifications.
Second-order effects
- Sony must use its unveiling to justify any premium implied by the leak through the Google TV experience, not merely the presence of web access.
- Buyers comparing connected-TV options are pushed to weigh an integrated Sony set against the cost and flexibility of other ways to put web content on a television.
Third-order effects
- If integrated web televisions become price-comparable with conventional sets, the competitive unit shifts from the display alone toward the software, processor, and content-access bundle.
- The leak is one data point in the television market’s move toward computing-style product segmentation, where hardware configurations and software capabilities are sold together.
The trend: Television makers are turning the screen into a bundled computing product, with retail pricing determining how broadly web-enabled TV can reach consumers.