Ok so here goes....

What I want is a box that I can hook up to my TV and sound system.

This box would have the following abilities:

1) It would record TV
2) It would be able to manage and store my media, with the ability to access new media by some means. This probably means either a hard drive or some sort cloud service access
3) It would be able to stream TV On Demand, YouTube and an LoveFilm blah equivalent [another post is going to be; Why don't we have one of these here]
4) Play DVDs, etc
4) The ability to sync with my other devices; phone, laptop, netbook, tablet, PC, whatever

Possible abilities could include:

1) The ability to be used with a key board to enable it to be used as a computer for browsing and writing emails word processing, spreadsheets whatever, this would be an 'auster' ability. The box will do it but it ain't what is primarily designed for and so there are other devices which will do this better. Much like you can watch TV on a smartphone but a TV is better
2) Gaming, again not a core ability but as I will outline it may become one. This may lead to the 'box' having a 'less than warp speed' processor. Whatever that means.

Now, you may be thinking of a 'media PC' but a quick look around suggests that the cheapest is the E box by Asus or something similar from Dell. These start at about $800. This is before we add TV tuners, gaming consoles or any 'extras'.

I thinks the thing is that these are 'more PC' than is needed for the basic tasks outlined above.

Right, you could say: 'Harden up Jack. You want to do this stuff, pay up.'

But, there is a box out there that ticks 'almost' all of the above.

The PS3.  

Storage, DVDs etc, TV on Demand, records TV (need Play TV but I live with that), net connection all there so ersatz browsing shouln't be a problem. All ticked

And it is a wicked gaming box, with Move functionality.

Pretty impressive bundles are going for under $700, including Play TV, games and all sorts.

So the question becomes "Why doesn't Sony do some sort of music service in conjunction with the PS3?"

OK, Sony has a patchy history with music. I walked the Mini-Disc dead end road, and they signed some of the worlds worst selling artists to Sony Music.

But seriously something like this could be a real 'main stream' alternative to iTunes. I'm no Fanboi but the fact is iTunes is the default music manager even if you have DoubleTwist or similar you probably use iTunes.

Now, the big problem with iTunes is that it only works with Apple mobile devices. That's cool it works for them, but it won't change any time soon. A Sony Alternative could be made to be compatible with any Android device. At present there is no 'default' music player for Android. If Sony did something like this it could be the default for how many million devices? I use DoubleTwist but this is mainly to copy my iTunes library to make it compatible with my phone.

Such a service could push music, games, movies ... blah for PS3, Android devices whatever.... OK, maybe this is swapping one 'evil empire' for another and what we really need is something home brewed and not 'controlled' by a corp but as an end user I just want to listen to Sweet Child of Mine on the way to work.

Maybe 'cloud' is the way to go, but there are plenty of places where you can't get coverage and streaming a long each time I want to listen to it is going to hit the data cap pretty quick.

It could run on PS3s and come bundled with the Viao range, which would start to justify the price premium. Hell, they could release it for all Android and Window devices if they felt like it. 

Sony used the PS3 to promote Blu-Ray and in the process killed HD DVD so why not?

Please tell me below...

Is this idea totally crazy?

Would something like this appeal?

Am I missing something?

How much would you pay?

I am in no way employed by Sony, Apple or anybody in the business of selling anything discussed above. I'm just curious.

Kind regards,

Jack