News.com meldt dat Sony de Walkman merknaam doet herrijzen als portable MP3 speler. Later dit jaar wordt deze nieuwe lijn MP3 Walkmans met een massaal advertentie offensief in de markt geplant. De spelers maken uiteraard gebruik van Sony's compacte Memory Stick storage medium. Ook interessant is de MC Walkman, een minidisk spelertje dat tevens MP3'tjes af weet te draaien. Verder werkt Sony aan spelers die via de draadloze Bluetooth standaard met soortgenoten kunnen babbelen:
The new Walkman lineup that will come out this year includes the MS Walkman, a digital player based on Sony's removable storage medium called Memory Stick. Sony previewed the MS Walkman, about the size of a Milky Way, last November at Comdex. Also in the pipes is the MC Walkman, a player that uses Sony's MiniDisc format but also incorporates a digital-to-analog converter for loading MP3 audio files from a PC.
"We have to revitalize that Walkman brand," Nishida said. "It's such a huge asset, like Trinitron," Sony's ubiquitous color-screen technology.
The new music players will come with a major advertising campaign featuring an alien mascot that looks like a cross between E.T. and a Smurf.