But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I am posting one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week, starting yesterday and concluding Friday.)

Sony (SNE) has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and the consumer electronics giant still has not proved that it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about the next direction for the PlayStation gaming business, Blu-ray discs, the impact of digital distribution, digital changes in the movie industry, personal computers and the “joy of craplets.”

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I am posting one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week, starting today and concluding Friday.)

The consumer electronics giant has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses and still has not proved Sony (SNE) can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about how Sony has been recovering from recent troubled times, the challenges of the television business, what’s next for screen technology (think thin) and the prospects for Sony’s huge PlayStation gaming franchise.

John covers the $100 price cut of Sony’s PlayStation 3 today here, which comes only days after the struggling electronics giant said it had “no immediate plans” to drop the price. But John’s still not opening his wallet (now empty from his iPhone purchase) until they throw in a George Foreman G5 Grill in Platinum with Interchangeable Plates!

We are savvy buyers here at AllThingsD.com!

Also today, in his Digital Daily column, John looks at the continuing dubious nature of Steorn’s perpetual-motion effort and Google’s purchase of Postini, which puts it ever more in competition with Microsoft.

His daily video on all this can be found here, or you can watch it below.

When Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski (right) got word of Microsoft’s enormous repair bill for the faulty Xbox 360 (which Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret reviewed here), he also discovered that the defect–the so-called red ring of death–may affect as many as a third or more of the video-game consoles, a fact the tech giant says will cause frustration for “some” of its customers. Read the spin antidote John wrote about the $1.15 billion warranty headache or watch his video, which is also available below.

John also unspins the verbiage from Sony about what it calls “refinements” to the price of its Play Station 3, and he deconstructs Universal Music Group’s decision not to renew its long-term contract with Apple’s iTunes, a move that one insider considers an ill-advised ploy that could alienate Steve Jobs just when the music company needs him most.

Posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year, Sony Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Nobuyuki Idei pondered the future of the world’s largest consumer-electronics company caught in the maelstrom of the heady Internet age.

What technology or online company, he wondered, would be the ideal partner that would allow Sony to take full advantage of its many assets in the digital arena? And how should Sony use its famed brand name, rich content, high-quality hardware and strong consumer relationships to become a key Internet player?

He tossed out some partner possibilities: Yahoo, AOL Time Warner and Microsoft. He didn’t let on what he considered best for Sony.

Last week, at the giant Comdex show in Las Vegas, Sony’s thinking became clearer. Sony announced a series of deals, including an ambitious, if vague, plan to work with AOL on developing easy-to-use high-speed home networks, innovative online content and devices, and even a new Internet browser. It also announced new initiatives related to cellphones and unveiled several new Net-enabled electronic products.

More important, in his keynote speech at the show, Sony’s president and chief operating officer Kunitake Ando made the company’s firmest declaration yet that it intends to become a “ubiquitous value network,” providing a range of consumer-friendly interactive services to any device anywhere.

It’s about time.

Despite its enviable digital assets, Sony has been the Hamlet of the interactive stage — unable to decide “to be” — largely due to an internal culture that kept its many independent fiefdoms from working together as a powerful whole.

The company has promised to fix the problem before. Last year, after the merger of AOL and Time Warner was announced, Sony said it was reorganizing management to better take advantage of the rapid convergence that was going on. “If they ever accomplish this, Sony could really make a big difference in the power dynamics of the industry,” said one Silicon Valley player last week. “The problem is, we have all gotten tired of waiting for it to happen.”

Sony execs claim things are different now that Internet mania has calmed and the world is on the cusp of a broadband future perfectly suited for their company. “We have taken a lot of heat…but we seem to be getting beyond the issues of how to cooperate among ourselves,” said Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony’s U.S. holding company, in an interview last week. “There is no one at the company–in Toyko or here–who does not understand now how this all has to be interrelated.”

It certainly is a tough time for Sony to step up its profile. The weak economy world-wide is limiting. Sony itself has felt the impact, especially in its flagship consumer-electronics area, reporting a $107 million loss for its recent quarter and forecasting that profits for the full year will be cut in half from the year before.

Still, it may not be such a bad time to begin striking out. Since the Internet bust leaves huge opportunities for stable players, companies like Sony may be in the best position to benefit when the next chapter of the interactive revolution begins.

To its credit, the company never jumped heedlessly into the frothy period, as other large media conglomerates, like Walt Disney Co., did. Now Sony’s conservatism has turned out to look pretty smart.

“While we are not entirely blameless, we definitely didn’t go charging in,” said Mr. Stringer, who credits managers in Japan for Sony’s restraint. “They were rightly suspicious of the business plans and found the bubble to be a bubble.”

While it considered a range of moves, such as investing heavily in both the Excite and Yahoo portals in their heyday, it didn’t do most of them in the end. “I definitely was nervous since everyone was getting rich but us,” recalled Mr. Stringer. “But we held back and as a result did not get as burned.”

Now that the interactive space has been “whittled down to make sense,” Mr. Stringer thinks Sony has the right stuff to prevail. He may be right, given that Sony holds many impressive and wide-ranging interactive assets.

In hardware, it offers well-made digital cameras, music players, hand-helds, computers and the leading game-player unit, the PlayStation 2, that has many other interactive possibilities. It is developing potentially promising interactive subscription services in music, games and movies, and holds licenses for interactive television applications. And its media unit holds important parcels of entertainment content.

What it doesn’t have is distribution, an impetus behind its push into broadband with AOL, and the reason for an earlier marketing deal with Yahoo to hawk its products, content and services online.

Indeed, the AOL broadband alliance, if done correctly, holds a lot of potential, especially since it will help ward off challenges from Microsoft, which is battling both companies in a number of consumer and home entertainment markets. The software company is spending prodigiously to launch a game-player competitor to PS2, called Xbox. Both products have aspirations well beyond games, hoping to use such devices to deliver a range of online offerings over high-speed lines in the future.

That’s why Sony is developing technologies such as Feel, which aims to join all kinds of devices in a high-speed wireless home network. With open standards and the link with the popular AOL, Mr. Stringer thinks Sony is “traveling at the right pace with the right partners.” He doesn’t believe the company needs to make many major acquisitions to realize its goals.

Of course, Sony’s success here depends on the rapid roll-out of broadband and getting consumers to pay for more interactive subscription services — a dream still not realized. It would also help if the economy turned around, too.

When it does, Mr. Stringer thinks Sony will be ready. “After all this talk about the promises of synergy,” he said, “we hope to begin to see the advantages.”

Or, in more literary terms: To be or not to be, that is the question.