Sony today announced that they are to phase out the Connect music download service (available through SonicStage) in favour of a Microsoft Windows Media scheme in the US, Canada and Europe. The move has been rumoured in the past week with details of a new Walkman - the NWZ-A810 series (very close to the European NW-A800 series) detailed on the US Sony Style website. This new Walkman comes bundled with a copy of Windows Media Player 11 to place music on the device and fully supports Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM scheme (complete with subcription services).