What ever happened to Sony?

The Golden Miller

Another thread on iPhone's got me thinking about this. Sony's demise as a one time market leader to a fringe company must be unprecedented and a company people seem to have all but forgotten about. They seemed to totally dominate the home entertainment and electronics market for decade's til the early 00's. If they didn't invent it, they pioneered the modern standard. From Walkman's, to TV's, Playstations, record labels, movie studio, camera's, they seemed to lead in every field. They were everywhere.

Then came the early 00's and the mp3 market. This in hindsight has been hugely significant, as it led into the smartphone era. Sony insisted on pushing their mini-disc Walkman, and Apple (then a struggling company) snuck in with the iPod and marketed it well. Sony seemed to lose huge ground here, and when they did push their mp3 Walkman, had continual problems with buggy software, software something they didn't specialise in it must be said.

It seem's since then things went from bad to worse, to the point that today they seem to be losing money in every division except the Playstation, and possibly camera's. They still operate in most electronic markets and provide alot of the hardware many other companies use, notably the iPhone and Samsung camera's. Infact, half their phones are made using Sony hardware.

No real point to this thread, other than when you think about it, their fall from grace has been huge, unprecedented. Don't think a company of their size has ever had a bigger fall. They pioneered so much, yet seem to be a mere footnote these days. Shame, because the tech market is a far better place with company's who specialise in real innovation. Philip's another former giant struggling

Dont they make an absolute mint off the playstation (PS5 has months of a waiting list afaik)

Unable to compete in the phone market to a huge extent and the continuing fall in price of electric goods,maybe concentrating on games consoles was wise??



Though they used make good quality stuff,not much use in a throw away econony......(i sound like my ould lad there :pac: )

punisher5112

They have many fingers in many pies

fryup

still make the best TVs

Their noise cancellers headphones are the best on the market and the PlayStation aint exactly a failure

Buddy Bubs

Sony aren't gone anywhere, don't judge it by what you see for sale in Ireland.

Barlett

PlayStation makes them more money than pretty much all their other avenues combined. They’re in a very healthy place .

jam_mac_jam

They make fabulous headphones. I have some on my head as we speak.

Their headphones are amazing. Typing this on a Sony phone while watching Netflix on a Sony tv.

The Golden Miller

People mentioning Playstation. Yes it's still a huge success as I already said. Apart from that, they were market leaders accross the board. Handheld devices, TV's, camera's, any electronics or home entertainment items really. Bar Playstation, they seem to have gone from market leaders across the board to fringe players, losing money left, right and centre. I'd say Playstation is keeping the whole show afloat

buried

Their headphones are very good, especially their earbuds. Still have my walkman and buds on the go, years and years after I bought them.

peasant

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

They make fabulous headphones. I have some on my head as we speak.

ditto ..and a pretty nifty little camera of theirs too (RX 100)

The Golden Miller

peasant wrote: »

ditto ..and a pretty nifty little camera of theirs too (RX 100)

True. The quality of their products has always been outstanding. Which makes their decrease all the more puzzling. They were the standard bearers in quality accross the board I forgot to say. Still are really on that front. Not translating into sales on a great scale for them though

The Golden Miller

The Golden Miller wrote: »

People mentioning Playstation. Yes it's still a huge success as I already said. Apart from that, they were market leaders accross the board. Handheld devices, TV's, camera's, any electronics or home entertainment items really. Bar Playstation, they seem to have gone from market leaders across the board to fringe players, losing money left, right and centre. I'd say Playstation is keeping the whole show afloat

This pricked my interest as i heard rumours before,but taught it was nonsense


They sell the ps5 at a loss,to drive game sales

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/02/03/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-yet-sony-is-posting-record-profits/amp/

buried

The Golden Miller wrote: »

True. The quality of their products has always been outstanding. Which makes their decrease all the more puzzling. They were the standard bearers in quality accross the board I forgot to say. Still are really on that front. Not translating into sales on a great scale for them though

Probably due to fact that their products last. No bother for another company to make a better sales rank based on the fact you have to get a replacement every two years for that companies non lasting rubbish.

The Golden Miller

Deleted User wrote: »

This pricked my interest as i heard rumours before,but taught it was nonsense


They sell the ps5 at a loss,to drive game sales

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/02/03/ps5-is-being-sold-at-a-loss-yet-sony-is-posting-record-profits/amp/

Ye it's interesting. Apparently make Xperia phones to a loss, to promote their camera technology too.

Why when someone decide's they don't want a iPhone, did Samsung become the alternative over Sony?

BeepBeep67

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgTLx93vyrU

Hurrache

Their quality has certainly dropped, particularly in the whole audio area. They've taken a back seat to many in this area, and the perception that they make the best TVs is historically rooted.

L1011

They pulled out of various non-profitable markets

They still do decent mobiles, they're just not commonly sold as we've fallen in to a three or four brand setup - Apple, Samsung, HTC and Huawei take maybe 90% of sales.

The Golden Miller

Hurrache wrote: »

Their quality has certainly dropped, particularly in the whole audio area. They've taken a back seat to many in this area, and the perception that they make the best TVs is historically rooted.

They still make mp3's that specialise in audio, no? And their headphones are best on the market no? Whatever about sales, surely their audio quality is still premium quality?

KungPao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOPViekdacQ

The GOAT for consoles, alright. Those pesky South Koreans and Steven Jobs stole some of their thunder. But the demand for PlayStation 5 is astounding.

And who knows, they might have a few tricks up their sleeves for future gadgets.

Greyfox

Deleted User wrote: »

They sell the ps5 at a loss,to drive game sales

Nothing surprising with that, it just helps them make an absolute fortune from game sales due to what publishers pay to have their games on a playstation console, the money is made from software rather than hardware. Sony are still making superb products and the playstation brand goes from strength to strenght.

rm212

They’re still an absolute massive company and have adapted well to the times, making big investments in entertainment markets. I’m holding shares in Sony as I think they’re such a brilliant company.

retalivity

I still have my sony minidisc player lying around somewhere, with about 50 minidiscs.
Also got he sony mp3 walkman which was a beautiful piece of kit, but yeah, the software was woeful. Managed to hack it and load music to/from it winamp many years ago, think I still have that as well...must try dig it out.

Hurrache

The Golden Miller wrote: »

They still make mp3's that specialise in audio, no? And their headphones are best on the market no? Whatever about sales, surely their audio quality is still premium quality?

No, not generally. Just because they make MP3s doesn't make their products premium, nor does the fact they have decent headphones. Audio is more than one class leading headphone.

BorneTobyWilde

The Sony Electric car is cool, wish they'd go build it .

The Golden Miller

rm212 wrote: »

They’re still an absolute massive company and have adapted well to the times, making big investments in entertainment markets. I’m holding shares in Sony as I think they’re such a brilliant company.

Making profits again recently? They were losing money year on year for over the last decade I checked. Their products are brilliant, but they did anything but adapt. Sony WERE the market leaders, and dominated every electronic market across the board. Now they dominate one, making loses in every other division. I can't see how that translates into adapting well with the times

nsi423

MiniDisk was such a class product. Technology and design.
I still remember my Sony W580 phone too, back then the phone hardware was more important than the software.
I wonder how Sony are doing in Japan and the US these days?

brevity

I think they need to work at their marketing. A lot of excellent products that are only popular in their relevant niches.

buried

If Hitachi is still on the go, I'd say you needn't worry about the welfare of Sony, OP

rm212

The Golden Miller wrote: »

Making profits again recently? They were losing money year on year for over the last decade I checked. Their products are brilliant, but they did anything but adapt. Sony WERE the market leaders, and dominated every electronic market across the board. Now they dominate one, making loses in every other division. I can't see how that translates into adapting well with the times

They literally smashed their revenue and profit projections in 2020. They’ve been killing it across all of their divisions which they’ve invested in, the growth industries which have adapted to the times... Sony Music (their record labels), PlayStation and electronic components supplied to other phones.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/sony-boosts-forecasts-as-profits-smash-estimates

It’d be great if you did a bit of actual research before making claims of no company of Sony’s size ever having such a downfall.

0lddog

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

The Sony Electric car is cool, wish they'd go build it .

Model 'Y' ?

Is Elon a SonyBot ?

micosoft

The Golden Miller wrote: »

Another thread on iPhone's got me thinking about this. Sony's demise as a one time market leader to a fringe company must be unprecedented and a company people seem to have all but forgotten about.

Hardly. What about Nokia, Research in Motion, Kodak? There are many massive technology companies that have disappeared completely. Sony is hardly fringe? The Playstation product line is enormous. They still play a huge part in the movies & music industry. Sony lenses appear in many cameras and smartphones.

The Golden Miller wrote: »

Then came the early 00's and the mp3 market. This in hindsight has been hugely significant, as it led into the smartphone era. Sony insisted on pushing their mini-disc Walkman, and Apple (then a struggling company) snuck in with the iPod and marketed it well. Sony seemed to lose huge ground here, and when they did push their mp3 Walkman, had continual problems with buggy software, software something they didn't specialise in it must be said.

The primary issue for Sony was the innovators dilemma. How do you drop existing product lines to make way for new ones. This was combined with the Sony Strategy of Vertical integration - they owned the media companies (Movie and Music Production) as well as the means to playback (Sony Electronics). This made it much much harder for Sony to disrupt the market than Apple or new entrants like Spotify who had no legacy business and did not have a guy at the table saying if you sell music like this you will kill our business or we make money on minidisks and not the players.

I will say that Sony had a couple of cultural issues around the first of which was "Invented here" here the needlessly invented proprietary standards like Memorystick, Betamax, ATRAC, and attempted a licensing model which rarely worked. It might have been technically better but good enough won the day like SD, VHS, MP3.
Secondly - as Marc Andreeson has said - in the last decade Software is eating the world. While Japanese companies like Sony became world class building hardware they never built a culture for building software. The key here is that value went from proprietary hardware and licensed standards to Software platforms and App stores. Sony had no real competence in these areas. Apple and Google won the value war with IOS and Android and monetise through their App Store and Advertising. Sony was stuck between them and folk who could build things cheaper in Korea and China as hardware became an open commodity.

The Golden Miller wrote: »

No real point to this thread, other than when you think about it, their fall from grace has been huge, unprecedented. Don't think a company of their size has ever had a bigger fall. They pioneered so much, yet seem to be a mere footnote these days. Shame, because the tech market is a far better place with company's who specialise in real innovation. Philip's another former giant struggling

Lots of precedents. Both Sony and Phillips are conglomerates. They transition from dying business lines to new lines every decade. Phillips has been reasonably successful in transitioning to Medical Imaging and its smart lighting range for example.

melekalikimaka

They had a huge patent on Trinitron TV tech they licensed out tightly, they tried push inferior atrac compression non their media devices, tried to make phones a audio device over function. And now LG own the TV space, audio has fallen back in value as high end audio is wasted on MP3. All they have left is game console

Homesick Alien

Just resurrected my old Sony Walkman mp3 player the other day as there was some music on it I didn't have anywhere else. Beautiful little thing. Bulletproof too. Didn't have any software issues and it came with these amazing noise cancelling earbuds.

micosoft

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

The Sony Electric car is cool, wish they'd go build it .

I'm pretty sure this is a technology demonstrator as Sony make ICE for OEM's. Ford actively brand it as Sony in their cars.

The Golden Miller

rm212 wrote: »

They literally smashed their revenue and profit projections in 2020. They’ve been killing it across all of their divisions which they’ve invested in, the growth industries which have adapted to the times... Sony Music (their record labels), PlayStation and electronic components supplied to other phones.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/sony-boosts-forecasts-as-profits-smash-estimates

It’d be great if you did a bit of actual research before making claims of no company of Sony’s size ever having such a downfall.

That's pretty much all Playstation based and profits. And ye, I suppose I didn't look at this year/last year specifically, as I had read a couple of years ago they made losses year in, year out for 15 years or so. So if their other departments like Xperia are now turning a profit, I'm glad, but doubt they are.

Whatever way you want to spin it they have had a downfall. Maybe not since last year. But from 20 years ago, as was the point of the thread. They were one of the biggest companys in the world for several decades, think I read somewhere they squeezed into the top 300 a couple of years ago. If being the market leader across the board to what they are now isn't a demise, then I don't know what is

If they are turning it around as you say, then great, I hope they are. I'd love Sony to be a huge player across the board again

The Golden Miller

Homesick Alien wrote: »

Just resurrected my old Sony Walkman mp3 player the other day as there was some music on it I didn't have anywhere else. Beautiful little thing. Bulletproof too. Didn't have any software issues and it came with these amazing noise cancelling earbuds.

The purple shiny one? They looked great. Dust used to build up under the buttons though

marcbrophy

Sony's one of the biggest conglomerates in the world.
Come out of the fog OP

Vestiapx

melekalikimaka wrote: »

They had a huge patent on Trinitron TV tech they licensed out tightly, they tried push inferior atrac compression non their media devices, tried to make phones a audio device over function. And now LG own the TV space, audio has fallen back in value as high end audio is wasted on MP3. All they have left is game console

Sony games and networks revenue was over 20 billion dollars in 2019


Total revenue was over 70 billion

This thread is weird ��


https://www.statista.com/statistics/297533/sony-sales-worldwide-by-business-segment/#:~:text=Revenue%20generated%20from%20Sony's%20game,it%20Sony's%20largest%20business%20segment.

The Golden Miller

micosoft wrote: »

Hardly. What about Nokia, Research in Motion, Kodak? There are many massive technology companies that have disappeared completely. Sony is hardly fringe? The Playstation product line is enormous. They still play a huge part in the movies & music industry. Sony lenses appear in many cameras and smartphones.



The primary issue for Sony was the innovators dilemma. How do you drop existing product lines to make way for new ones. This was combined with the Sony Strategy of Vertical integration - they owned the media companies (Movie and Music Production) as well as the means to playback (Sony Electronics). This made it much much harder for Sony to disrupt the market than Apple or new entrants like Spotify who had no legacy business and did not have a guy at the table saying if you sell music like this you will kill our business or we make money on minidisks and not the players.



Lots of precedents. Both Sony and Phillips are conglomerates. They transition from dying business lines to new lines every decade. Phillips has been reasonably successful in transitioning to Medical Imaging and its smart lighting range for example.

Ye, that's a good reply and interesting the middle paragraph with Sony's hand being forced on the mini-disk really. It's an interesting topic. Although I wouldn't have put the likes of Kodak or Nokia on Sony's level of prominence really. They had certain time spans and fads, Sony dominated a market for 40 odd years, was one of the biggest companies in the world period. Nokia or Kodak weren't close to that level

SEPT 23 1989

They lost their way after the Discman

The Golden Miller

Vestiapx wrote: »

Sony games and networks revenue was over 20 billion dollars in 2019


Total revenue was over 70 billion

This thread is weird ��


https://www.statista.com/statistics/297533/sony-sales-worldwide-by-business-segment/#:~:text=Revenue%20generated%20from%20Sony's%20game,it%20Sony's%20largest%20business%20segment.

So 1/3rd of their company is now Playstation based. They once led every market. Now they don't. I said the Playstation market was profitable

Ye 70 billion is huge. Relatively though, what's Apple's revenue, Samsung even? Sony were miles ahead of these at one stage, now miles behind

Hurrache

Vestiapx wrote: »

Sony games and networks revenue was over 20 billion dollars in 2019


Total revenue was over 70 billion

This thread is weird ��


https://www.statista.com/statistics/297533/sony-sales-worldwide-by-business-segment/#:~:text=Revenue%20generated%20from%20Sony's%20game,it%20Sony's%20largest%20business%20segment.

It's moreso a dip in consumer products they've traditionally being best at, audio visual.

SEPT 23 1989

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

They lost their way after the Discman

Walking in circles!

The Golden Miller

nsi423 wrote: »

MiniDisk was such a class product. Technology and design.
I still remember my Sony W580 phone too, back then the phone hardware was more important than the software.
I wonder how Sony are doing in Japan and the US these days?

Still great in Japan apparently, although they'd want to be. Involved in finance there too I think

US a disaster outside Playstation as far as I'm aware. Pulled the Xperia line from there altogether

poisonated

I prefer Sanyo.

Vestiapx

The Golden Miller wrote: »

So 1/3rd of their company is now Playstation based. They once led every market. Now they don't. I said the Playstation market was profitable

Ye 70 billion is huge. Relatively though, what's Apple's revenue, Samsung even? Sony were miles ahead of these at one stage, now miles behind

So IBM are crap now as well? Roughly the same size! What about BMW? they are smaller than Facebook they used to be much better.

monkeysnapper

A few years ago I beat Sony in a marketing competition....

My kids who were 4 and 6 came running into house saying next door have a Sony PlayStation 4 !!!! Wow great ...

So I got a marker pen and wrote a 5 on my PlayStation 2 and kids ran back out telling their friends we have a 5 ....

That was even before 5 came out so in theory I owned the very first PlayStation 5. .....

Not many of you can say that now can you....

Oafley Jones

It’s really simple: A whole bunch of electronic devices consolidated into the smartphone. And Sony doesn’t do well in smartphones. They do sell a **** ton of imaging sensors/camera modules.

Their reliance on the PS brand is troubling given that streaming boxes will probably kill traditional consoles and then Sony will need to become essentially just a store (great if you’re as Apple), but it’s an area they’ve been historically **** at.

The Golden Miller

Vestiapx wrote: »

So IBM are crap now as well? Roughly the same size! What about BMW? they are smaller than Facebook they used to be much better.

BMW peers with FB? I never said Sony didn't make money, they've fallen along way back to their peers, despite completely dominating the markets previously. If you can't get the point, then I can't make it much simpler