Sony has decided that it cannot stay out of the race to catch the iPod, so it joins companie like Microsoft and Sandisk in pursuing the Holy Grail of multimedia devices. The Japanese consumer electronics company will offer video downloads for its Playstation Portable.

Given how many people already have an iPod with video capacity, a Zune, or one of the other devices that runs video and looking at the video download offerings from Amazon to Apple, it would seem that Sony is late to the game.

Being late is, of course, nothing new for Sony.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.