Sony is Back Milking Thumbdrives (This Time with Michael Jackson)

Entertainment giant Sony which won the HD format battle earlier this year apparently isn't satisfied that we are re-buying almost every DVD we own in Blu-ray. Video in high-def maybe worth the money, but we can't say the same for DRM-wrapped movies and music pre-loaded on a thumbdrive. And yes, Sony is now selling those now in the name of "...expanding applications for flash drives." Likely as a test to consumer reaction, the new Micro Vault Entertainment Packs will initially be album of the 25th Anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller for $19.99, and blockbuster movies like The Da Vinci Code and Men in Black for $29.99 each.

The Thriller album will ship with some bonus tracks featuring remixes from Akon, Kanye West and will.i.am as well as four music videos. We can see the point of releasing limited release of digital album on a flash drive as fans will just buy it as collectible items. But for movies, did Sony forget about its own mightly Blu-ray and rest of competing video download services? More Blu-ray discs now bundle the electronic format for the SD-version of the movie, and they go for $20-range. iTunes on the other hand sells the same SD content at $14.99 for recent movies and $9.99 for older ones. It should be a no brainer which one consumer will choose? To add further confusion, it's still a mystery whether the movies will be stuck on the flash drive forever without a method to load them on a PC for permanent storage, or to transfer them to PMP.