From the original post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by advocate2
According to today's Wall Street Journal:
After years of refusing to release her boy-wizard books in electronic format, Harry Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling is finally taking the digital plunge, launching an online store that will sell Harry Potter e-books directly to consumers and a social-networking site designed to keep the Potter magic alive.
The free-to-access site, known as Pottermore, launches for the first million users on July 31 and opens to the general public—with the online e-book store—in October. Once the online store opens, the full Harry Potter series will be available as e-books in multiple languages, compatible with any electronic reading device.
Sony Corp. has served as a primary partner in building the site. Once the online store goes live in October, Sony will be selling Pottermore branded products alongside the Harry Potter e-books, a spokeswoman for Sony said. Those could include Pottermore branded Sony e-readers, as well as other Harry Potter-specific electronics or software products.
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More than 200 posts later ... it said in the very first one that Kindle and ePub formats would be supported. All this nonsense of Amazon being forced into supporting ePub ...
... and apparently the texts will be released DRM-free, too ... which cuts out any payments to Adobe, btw. As far as I know, Kobo is the only one of the four leading ereaders that supports epub, mobi, pdf DRM free so perhaps we all ought just buy a Kobo Touch to read our favourite Harry Potter.
The OP also slipped in the keyword "could" when it listed Sony ereaders might be Potterised. It is the Sony content division, not hardware, that is engaged with Ms Rowling; There are lots of things -- Potter on the PS3 and on the PS3 network -- which would make far more sense than selling a reskinned Sony ereader.
Lastly, there is absolutely zero evidence that Sony even intends to stay in the ereader / ebook business. They have done nothing to advance their ebook store experience in more than a year nor anything to expand the ability for the store to appear on many other devices in the way its chief competitors have.
On the ereader side, it did an incremental refresh of only two models last year and has effectively withdrawn from markets around the world, shedding partners as important as Walmart and Best Buy. The Sony Style stores in the US and Canada now only carry the 5" non-wifi touch PRS-350 in one colour ... all other models have been discontinued or are perpetually out of stock. Meanwhile, Amazon, B&N and Kobo have worked very hard to expand their base in the past year, even in the face of Agency fiasco and the launch of the iPad. If one were making a prediction, one might suggest Sony will be out of the ereader business by the time Pottermore formally launches in October.