Sony wants to turn its gaming division into its entertainment hub

While the PlayStation 4 continues to sell like black, plastic hotcakes, not all of Sony’s business divisions are doing so well. Thus, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the company is trying to push their little slanted box’s success as much as they can. Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, told the Wall Street Journal that includes launching an internet television service by the end of 2014, as well as a service that could stream games onto mobile devices other than Sony’s own Vita – though the latter has no planned release window. It’s not clear if the proposed video steaming service would change release plans for Powers, the Sony Pictures Television-produced adaptation of the comic of the same name.

Faced with deep losses in its electronics business that caused its stock to plunge Thursday, Sony Corp. is stepping up efforts to turn its better-performing game division into a hub for entertainment services. Andrew House, chief executive of the game unit, said in an interview Thursday that his unit was talking with a range of potential content partners for a planned Internet television service that Sony intends to introduce in the U.S. by the end of the year. Sony last week disclosed details of one such agreement with Viacom Inc.,VIAB +0.51% under which it will be able to stream more than 20 channels, including MTV and Nickelodeon. Mr. House said Sony also intended to develop a service to stream videogames onto smartphones, tablets and other devices from a range of manufacturers other than Sony. “A streaming-based approach needs to have a very wide funnel of devices, and that inherently means a broad- and manufacturer-agnostic approach,” said Mr. House, who was attending the Tokyo Game Show in this Tokyo suburb. Since its introduction in November last year, Sony’s $399 PlayStation 4 console is selling at the fastest pace on record for any Sony game console. After nine months, it sold 10 million units, far ahead of rivals from Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co.