During the course of an interview at Sony Corp's Tokyo headquarters, the company's Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai said that the introduction of the company's new online service, which will link its wide array of gadgets as well as downloadable content like movies and games, will help in building brand loyalty.

With the rather enviable Sony business empire spanning electronics, gaming, movies and music arenas, the online service will expectedly give the company an added advantage vis-à-vis its rivals like Samsung Electronics and other manufacturers which do not produce their own content.

The new online service will include games, movie downloads and other interactive entertainment content, which the users will be able to access on a number of Sony devices, including its Bravia TV sets; Cyber-shot digital cameras; and Reader electronic books.

With already a service in place for its PlayStation 3 video games, which initiated around three years back and has attracted 33 million users, Sony is now looking at a yearly sales figure of 300 billion yen from its networked services businesses, along with 350 million network-connected products, by the fiscal year ending March 2013.

About the Sony online service, which will commence next year, Hirai said: "That's the kind of combination that I think is not seen anywhere else. That I think is where our core competence lies, and that's a differentiator for Sony."