What went wrong with Sony?

[Gmash]

On what planet has the PS3 been abandoned?

Top 10 PS3 Exclusives To Look Forward To In 2013

 

[Speed Daemon]

my non-american perspective on that would be that there may be more Japanese consumers willing to pay more for Japanese-made, quality products.

Compared to what nation(s)? How much more do the made-for-Japan products cost compared to the same models made outside of Japan for export to markets other than Japan? If you're saying that there is no nationalist favoritism in Japan, how do you reconcile that with Morita's book? What about The China That Can Say No: Political and Emotional Choices in the post Cold-War era?

Here in the US we're willing to pay $70,000 (for ENG-style) to $250,000+ for Japanese made video cameras (not including lenses and other ancillary equipment like tripods/pedestals), and expect the very best quality for those prices. Because the US never had nationalized television, there are a lot more TV stations and therefore broadcast quality cameras (and other products from Japan) than in any other country that I know of.

The last time I checked, the US was the largest market for costly "high end" audio and A/V equipment for home use. Has this changed? I'm not as involved in this area as I used to be.

Other consumers in other parts of the world just want high-quality yet cheap products. No such thing.

Why not?

I used to be an avid reader of Sam Tellig's "Audio Cheapskate" column in Stereophile magazine, and managed to get some very good value. In the video department, the "prosumer" class of equipment give amazing value. Some have been used to make broadcast quality TV programs and even cinematic work.

 

[zuben el genub]

Sony DVR Useless After Rovi Stops TV Guide OnScreen - Slashdot

 

[nickdalzell]

It got abandoned when they focused on over promoting childish games like little big planet and stopped offering system updates to fix the (many) bugs in the system software, such as the lag in the in game XMB to not offering cross-game chat that the Xbox (and Vita)has had since launch.

The PlayStation Vita has also flopped. Its going to end up shelved right between the Sega Dreamcast and Nokia N-gage...

 

[Gmash]

I don't see how you can call the ps3 abandoned when it has more and better exclusives than the 360 and it is still selling well, but ok. The Vita is a great piece of hardware, but handheld consoles are on the way out because of tablets and phones. I agree that it probably won't survive the turmoil and inevitable cutbacks that will be coming to Sony. They did manage to keep the psp alive for quite awhile, though, so you never know.

 

[nickdalzell]

The Vita has three things against it. No price drop (prices are the same as the PlayStation 3) proprietary memory that's pricey, and a serious lack of games.

 

[Gmash]

The proprietary memory is one thing I hate about Sony. They could have at least stuck with the memory stick pro duo like the psp, but no, yet another new, expensive format? This is the kind of stuff where Sony shoots itself in the foot.

 

[saptech]

I remember having one of these back in the day....it was top of the line...

 

[nickdalzell]

I saw stereos older than that. The kind with an 8-track player. And those super tall speakers, they must have wanted to set the stereo apart from the rest of the decor, given how showy they were in the 80s

 

[novox77]

Going back to the console sale comparison chart that Gmash posted a while ago, it'd seem that the PS3 and Xbox have been pretty much neck and neck since 2007 when both consoles were new. While I would agree the PS3 is not a complete flop and "abandoned," one needs to look at Sony's trend from further back. The PS2 was arguably as dominating as Apple's iPod in their respective markets. What would you name as a worthy competitor to the PS2 at that time? The original Xbox? Nintendo's GameCube? Or Sega's Dreamcast?

Sony went from king of the consoles to just another player. They lost a lot of long-time exclusives those first few years of the PS3. They've managed to keep up with Xbox sales, but when the Wii motion controls forced both Sony and MS to develop their own motion systems, the Kinect blew Move out of the water, though arguably, the Move had the more promising technology.

I was an early adopter of the PS3, mainly cause I had the money to blow, and I wanted the blu-ray player that wouldn't go obsolete. I don't regret my decision, but I totally relate to the purist gamers who chose Xbox360 over PS3. A lot of my friends defected.

From a corporate perspective, the PS3 was a failure because it failed to maintain or increase Sony's dominance in the console market.

 

[dan330]

i personally hope that sony can bring something to play.. to get the market share back. I like my PS3.

but if Xbox wins.. and get over 70% of the market.. then that is one more huge advantage over android for WP. think of all the tech nerds that will move on to the WP because of the Xbox tie in. and google has nothing that can compete there. that is a very powerful group that has huge affect on adopting tech!

unless console market just dies of and is replaced by hand helds that can provide the same onto the TV.

we need winning sony to make a huge tie into the android system.

 

[nickdalzell]

Sony's motto is also not helping. Sony--it's 'Make Believe!'

 

[pastafarian]

You can't blame Sony's fall on any one product. Flat out, Sony's been mismanaged for years. From what I understand, the company is made up of a bunch of silo'd divisions that don't work together and fight with each other for corporate dominance. It made Sony as a whole slow to innovate or even keep up with the markets its in. They let the TV business slip through they're hands when they were pathetically late to market with flat screens. Now they're viewed as the choice of ill informed old timers. They let Apple eat their lunch by totally misreading the portable media player market. Somewhere deep inside Sony, they're probably still working on a hd based player to take on the first gen ipod. They are allowing MS, a company almost as slow and bloated as Sony to push them around in the gaming arena. They had a firm foothold in the small camera and video recorder arena, but squandered a lot of sales on proprietary formats that pissed off users. Now those markets are essentially dead. Can't get your own mobile strategy beyond the stillborn stage? Why not buy Ericsson and kill theirs too? Sony spent so much capital getting the public to believe they made better stuff, when the fact is they usually didn't. Eventually, the public caught on. Now they have to compete on a level field where they actually have to be better to garner sales, and they're just not better, usually not even close to average. When the almost inevitable collapse of Sony comes, they will become the subject of study in all business schools on how even the mighty can fall through gross mismanagement, along with other standouts like Pan Am, Saab and Hostess.

 

[Bob Maxey]

I think they should have stopped making Washing Machines. I told them to stop it but they did not listen and released the Sony WalkWasher. It made a wet mess everywhere you went, what with all that sloshing about and such.

They should have also put more R/D money into Wire Recorders and stopped fooling about with tape. Wire is forever, you know?

Rice Cookers. When Sony stopped making a good rice cooker, the end was just around the Shinto Temple.

Sony's motto is also not helping. Sony--it's 'Make Believe!'

I believe the only time they use that slogan is at board meetings. But I could be mistaken.

 

[Raley]

This sort of makes me laugh. My friend was going on about how Sony was top of the line for everything. Now I'm reading this.

 

[Speed Daemon]

The proprietary memory is one thing I hate about Sony. They could have at least stuck with the memory stick pro duo like the psp, but no, yet another new, expensive format? This is the kind of stuff where Sony shoots itself in the foot.

Both Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic) have been trying to to lock in their big corporate and broadcast TV equipment buyers with proprietary formats. At least the P2 card adheres to an established standard (the original PCMCIA cards were for expansion RAM), even if nobody else uses it. And my Sony pro video equipment accepts standard SD cards as well as their proprietary ones. But Sony lost a sale when I needed a new laptop, partly because of the proprietary Memory Stick format. I'm still using Compact Flash media with my still cameras, and SD for everything else.

I remember when we were using MMC cards, and thought that SD cards would be a non-starter because of the built-in DRM crap. Now we don't have a choice.

 

[Speed Daemon]

This sort of makes me laugh. My friend was going on about how Sony was top of the line for everything. Now I'm reading this.

These days most major manufacturers are all about brand recognition, focus groups and big marketing spending. If the would take their marketing budget and use it on engineering, they'd have a product that would sell itself.

As a general rule I stay away from businesses that use costly marketing campaigns, like TV commercials and product placement. I know that every dollar that goes into marketing is a dollar that didn't go into making a quality product.

 

[Gmash]

This sort of makes me laugh. My friend was going on about how Sony was top of the line for everything. Now I'm reading this.

Sony does still make some high end products. Problem is, you don't see most of them in your local big-box store.

 

[Joelgp83]

I remember when we were using MMC cards, and thought that SD cards would be a non-starter because of the built-in DRM crap. Now we don't have a choice.

Pardon my ignorance, but what DRM?!

Last I heard, you could take any ol' SD card and pop it into any ol' device that used them and you could see and use its contents....

 

[!on]

Probably the Sonic Stage software that people were bullied into using. Even today I know of someone who claims they cannot just drag & drop because of sony software stopping them. I tell them they're wrong, they can drag & drop from one window to another... but they won't have it.

The thing wrong with sony was their mechanical moving parts. Cheap plastic buttons, dust getting into CD walkman lazer tracks, minidisc cartridge mechanisms, spring loaded memory card hatches... they all broke on me. The less moving parts for sony the better.

 

[zuben el genub]

I've still got 2 working Clies. They made those well.

If I remember right, just before the PDA market died, Sony pulled a funny with the Memory sticks. The originals you just used like any SD card, but the last ones might have had some proprietary nonsense or DRM. This was at least 10 years ago, and I can't remember what, but I do remember getting annoyed about it. The camcorder uses the stupid things, too.

I'll say one thing for Panasonic. They made a microwave oven that didn't beep every minute after it was done, and said so. I had a GE that had to beep until you opened the door. Most annoying thing I've ever had.

 

[mikedt]

Probably the Sonic Stage software that people were bullied into using.

Sonic Stage was just horrible, so unfriendly, ugly, clunky and extremely buggy. You had to use it with Sony's ATRAC Walkmans(discontinued). Friend of mine actually chucked his Walkman PMP in the bin because of it, We could never make it work properly. You had to convert all your MP3s to ATRAC, and they were wrapped in nasty DRM. There was a music store as well called Sony Connect. That sold DRM'd songs in the Sony only ATRAC format.

It's a good example of a failed Sony proprietary system.

Even today I know of someone who claims they cannot just drag & drop because of sony software stopping them. I tell them they're wrong, they can drag & drop from one window to another... but they won't have it.

If his Walkman is less than about five years old and not an ATRAC one, he should just be able to drag & drop. Or should be able use normal software like WMP or Winamp, to put his music on it. In fact Sonic Stage won't even work with modern MP3 (non-ATRAC) Walkmans AFAIK.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Pardon my ignorance, but what DRM?!

DRM stands for "digital rights management." DRM prevents unfettered copying of copy-protected files like music purchased from certain websites.

Last I heard, you could take any ol' SD card and pop it into any ol' device that used them and you could see and use its contents....

What you don't see is that ~10% of the storage capacity that you paid for is devoted to software that's ready and waiting for an application program on a computer, smart phone etc. to access it and let the application prevent copying DRMed files to the SD card.

If you're using file formats that don't support DRM, and using software other than Windows Media Player, you're not likely to see anything more than an available capacity that doesn't add up to what the label promises.

 

[mikedt]

DRM stands for "digital rights management." DRM prevents unfettered copying of copy-protected files like music purchased from certain websites.

DRM also restricts the content on certain players and devices only. e.g. DRM movies and TV shows from Apple iTunes Store can only be played on Apple iOS devices.

The previously mentioned defunct Sony Connect store, is also a good example of DRM. Any DRM'd songs you bought from it, were restricted to Sony devices only. And now because Sony pulled the plug on it, those songs you bought can't be played at all.

TBH I prefer the term Digital Restrictions Management, as coined by Richard Stallman. Because it's all about restricting what you can do with the content. You have no rights at all with DRM. I think if you buy anything that has DRM, your only actually leasing or renting it, you're not actually purchasing it outright at all.

Apparenty with Barnes & Noble DRM'd e-books, if you close your account, they cancel all the e-books you bought from them.

 

[Joelgp83]

DRM stands for "digital rights management." DRM prevents unfettered copying of copy-protected files like music purchased from certain websites.

It appears I misspoke. I am well aware of what DRM is and what it entails. I was asking about what DRM software could possilbly be on SD cards since I've never seen any there.

What you don't see is that ~10% of the storage capacity that you paid for is devoted to software that's ready and waiting for an application program on a computer, smart phone etc. to access it and let the application prevent copying DRMed files to the SD card.

Wait, seriously?! I thought that was just the standard space-taken-up-due-to-file-allocation-table stuff! Then again, I guess that would explain why my 8gb SD cards apparantly need a FAT table 700 mb in size.

If you're using file formats that don't support DRM, and using software other than Windows Media Player, you're not likely to see anything more than an available capacity that doesn't add up to what the label promises.

....And THAT explains why I've never encountered it. Practially none of my music or files have DRM on it.

Still, that is horribly disenheartening to hear about. Unless it is explicitly mentioned on the packaging, storage devices should be completely agnostic to what you put on it. If they're THAT insistent on adding incoming file-checking software on the cards, they should've added some sort of generic antivirus instead -- that would be much more beneficial use of space than worrying about "licenses", IMO.