Sony Projects Record Losses of $6.4 Billion

redletterdave writes "Not 24 hours after Sony announced it would slash about 10,000 jobs by the end of the year, the Japanese electronics maker announced on Tuesday that it has again doubled its annual net loss to a record $6.4 billion. The new annual estimate is Sony's fourth revision of its original forecast. The company had already more than doubled its loss forecast for fiscal 2011 on April 5 to $2.9 billion, blaming floods in Thailand, poor foreign exchange rates, and a failed partnership with Samsung... Kazuo Hirai, the company's new president and CEO hired 10 days ago, will take 'painful steps' to revive Sony, and will unveil a 'revival strategy' at a Thursday press briefing."

Comments

Sony's war on their customers

[onyxruby]

Sony, how is that war against your customers going for you? At some point you need to wake up and realize that your customers are not your enemies, they are your boss.

Wake up Sony, you could be one of the greatest and most profitable companies on earth with a few policies changes.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[evilRhino]

I broke my boycott of Sony due to shipping CDs with root-kits to get a PS3 when the slim model was released. Soon after, the network was hacked, and I lost the ability to use the console without agreeing to waive my rights to sue them if they get hacked again.
Breaking my boycott was a mistake. The company is dead to me now

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[firex726]

Their electronics side is doing quite well, its the other divisions you don't hear about that are really doing badly.
The Chemical Processing Division is being sold off? and will account for about 3000 of those jobs.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, the losses don't seem to be concentrated in their most anti-customer segments(arguably Sony/BMG, Sony Pictures Entertainment, or their gaming division, (with, arguably, their PC division also being included, if only for the sheer incompetence of the crapware bundled with them by default).

Instead, they got Absolutely Fucking Hammered in their "Once reputable; but basically who gives a fuck anymore and Panasonic is cheaper and as good and whoever makes 'Vizio" is cheaper still and I don't notice the difference" segments.

Is it arguable that arrogance is biting them in the ass? Sure. Along with generic failure-to-focus and commodification of what used to be quality-driven markets(with music and 'home theatre' gear, people have either gone hard upmarket to the boutique guys, or are basically buying on price. Sony is neither. Game over.

However, all their truly malicious rather than merely arrogant and feckless, divisions remain viable.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to trivialize something sad. On behalf of AC's everywhere, DIAF.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

If you killed all the whites, who would the black steal from?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony, how is that war against your customers going for you? At some point you need to wake up and realize that your customers are not your enemies, they are your boss.

Wake up Sony, you could be one of the greatest and most profitable companies on earth with a few policies changes.

Exactly. I have personally boycotted Sony for six or seven years now. I'm not an anti-Sony crusader, it's simply that after a company pisses me off repeatedly, they don't get any more of my money. Even if Sony did wake up, it's too late as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[slaker]

I stopped buying Sony products when I called for an RMA on a Sony tape drive and was told that they don't support computer products unless they're specifically connected to computers running desktop versions of Windows. In response, I asked if that included displays. The phone monkey hung up on me.

Funny in retrospect but the level of unfriendliness suggested by that interaction is such that I've been looking forward to Sony's demise for a long, long time.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Be honest now, if you break a boycott because a company releases a product you want then you were never really boycotting them in the first place, you were just trying to present your lack of interest in their products as a principled stance.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[IcyNeko]

Don't worry. Kaz Hirai is on the case. He'll raise prices so painfully high that consumers will "need to get 10 jobs just to earn the right to use our products".

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is. People are pissed off from their existing purchases from those division (movies don't count, they not seen as Sony products). So these people are not buying new Sony screens, receivers, phones, and they're putting off others the brand while they're at it. Sony are probably the #1 most hated tech company these days.

Haven't you noticed that their PSP Go was still born, and their Vita is almost as dead after the early adopters and fanboys got it on release?

Each year, Sony is going to have a harder time. The anti Sony ranks are swelling as the company goes out of its way to piss off customers.

They need to compete on price, they are no longer considered a premium brand, so that extra $100 for the badge doesn't cut it.

They need to use standards and not try to force over prices proprietary shit on to us at every turn.

They need to stop their Not Invented Here mentality too.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jedidiah]

I was never in an active "boycott Sony" mode. Although I am not sure that it mattered. That's the problem really. Sony is suffering from a great deal of indifference in general I think rather than just the rage of a few well informed nerds.

What's Sony got to offer us that would make us want to break a boycott even if we decided we were boycotting them? I think a lack of answer to that question is their real problem.

Sony? Who cares?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[hairyfeet]

Can we all just admit NOW that the PS4 was a failure? while i don't have a horse in this race (I'm happy with Steam and have moved both my boys onto gaming PCs) just as we saw Sony slaughter Sega with the PS1 and MSFT with the PS2 its pretty obvious that the PS4 can be called the loser at this point in the race with the crazy cheap X360 and Nintendo with the cool controller drinking their milkshake.

In a way the irony is pretty thick since they fell for the same stupid idea that destroyed Sega with the Saturn. if you look at the specs the Saturn was crazy powerful, one could argue it was more powerful than the PS1 which used COTS, but the design made it a royal bitch and a half to code for so nobody used even half the power, in fact IIRC less than a dozen games over its entire lifetime even used the second CPU for anything better than sound or game AI. When this is added to the fact that the more expensive and complex chip design meant that Sega couldn't lower the price like Sony could without bleeding to death just helped to dig the hole deeper.

Now look at the PS4, the Blu Ray caused them to take a HUGE bath on every unit sold (some estimates have the real cost of the PS4 at $1000 at launch, compared to $550 for the X360) and the cell not only made it a royal bitch and a half to code and port for but when combined with the BD made it even harder for Sony to lower the price without just gushing money. Compare this to the X360 which actually took the PS1 lessons to heart and was able to actually lower chip counts as it progressed thus making it profitable on every unit sold for more than 3 years.

I think the big question is not whether Sony will survive but whether they will have the money to make another powerful machine or not. if the rumors Ars technica have been printing are true you are talking about a mid range AMD Bobcat or Bulldozer APU that will be about the same power as you get in those $300 tigerdirect kits, not very impressive for a console, not if you want it to last 5 years which is the average lifespan historically. But one has to love the irony at all those here that hate Sony for being douches who then have to support MSFT which they can't stand either.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Junta]

Also, Sony has been pretty hit and miss on quality. For example, their receivers have lots of reports of inadequate thermal design and solder failures. Generally lots of cases of Sony obviously trying to cut costs and sell on reputation, and that measure has come back to erode reputation.

So we are left with a company that is making shoddy products, has a poor security record, is pretty anti-consumer in various technologies, and charging a premium on top of all of that. Sony has to do some drastic moves to stay relevant.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Last Sony product I bought was a blu-ray player that said it would play ogv and other video formats over the network via dnla. Fat chance, stupid thing doesn't do anything it says it will.

Never will buy another Sony product... just too much evil.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Quiet_Desperation]

Can we all just admit NOW that the PS4 was a failure?

Psst! Doctor! Too early!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Oscaro]

Quite surprising their mobile department is quite open. They published many driver source code and also they published an alpha and beta version of android ICS for some models. I guess the mobile department is still more Ericsson than Sony :-/

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[PetiePooo]

Remember Sony's heyday? When they came out the the coolest Walkman players and headphones?

They used to be a great tech company. They built things that enthusiasts loved. I still remember fondly my WM-10. It was a sad day when I dropped it and broke the headphone jack.

There are two things that I believe led them to the brink of the disaster they currently find themselves in:

1) Proprietary technology: Sony's history with proprietary technology goes back decades. A partial list:
- Betamax (VHS won even though technologically inferior)
- MD (CDs were more versatile and sounded better)
- Memory Sticks (an unneeded but pricy competitor to SD, CF, etc.)
- Bluray (I still wish HD-DVD had won that war).

IBM learned their lesson about proprietary commodity hardware when their PS/2 attempt tanked.

2) Purchase of Columbia Pictures (1989): With this purchase, their media arm became the tail that wagged the dog, and it continued with their purchase of BMG. They forgot about enabling their customers with technology, and used their technology to inhibit their customers instead, all in the name of protecting their media. This led them to blunders such as their use of XCP and MediaMax rootkits They still haven't learned their lesson, as it continues with BD+

Several cable companies are falling into this same trap. When a single entity owns both the media and the distribution channel, consumer trust evaporates as the entity inevitably tries to tie the two into a monopoly.

When will it end? And can we as consumers ever trust them again?

I seriously doubt it. I haven't bought any Sony gear for nearly a decade, and I don't think I'm the only one.

RIP, Sony - 1946 - 201x

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Oh, I'm certainly not going to argue that generating bad PR(along with genuine reductions in the quality delta between Sony and once-inferior competitor brands) has done anything but hurt the company, nor has their NIH approach helped them reduce either their own costs or the customer's total-cost-of-buying-a-sony-thing.

My point is just that, division by division, Sony's departments of Evil are doing alright, while Sony's departments of overpriced-but-not-actually-luxury are getting absolutely hammered. Barring some sort of benevolent visionary, it seems likely that the more-or-less-neutral stuff is going to get 'rightsized' and cut back, while the evil will wax yet fouler.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[aslanuk]

Like a number of other posts here, this news makes me smile. Since their DRM fiasco I have boycotted Sony and my resolve strengthened when the Play Station Network got hacked. I avoid their entire brand like the plague and the news their company is failing has brought a smile to an otherwise mundane day.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Pope]

What's a PS4?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[bsane]

This.

I've made a point to not buy Sony for more than a decade. It only comes up when I need to buy a quick pair of headphones somewhere weird (airport for example) and the only decent ones for sale are Sony. Other than that its the easiest boycot ever. They make nothing I need or want, and are often the worst choice anyway.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mcgrew]

Wake up Sony, you could be one of the greatest and most profitable companies on earth with a few policies changes.

After rooting my computer there's no way I'll ever be their customer again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The first time he hits you you're a victim, the second time you're an accomplice.

Record losses? Gee but I love seeing good news first thing in the morning. Die, Sony DIE!!!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[squiggleslash]

Assuming you mean the PS3...

The purpose of PS3 was to sell Blu-ray and kill HD DVD, which was disliked (a) because it wasn't a Sony product and (b) because it wasn't consumer hostile. That was it.

PS3 succeeded. It doesn't matter that on the surface it was loss making. Sony was able to use the PS3 to push BD and kill HD DVD, making BD the high definition optical disc standard.

Of course, Blu-ray itself is a piece of utter garbage, and as a result has no chance whatsoever of ever reaching DVD's ubiquity, something HD DVD at least had a chance of doing. Even now, sales figures look better than they are purely because it's getting difficult to buy a DVD of a new release without buying it as part of a Blu-ray/DVD bundle.

But that doesn't matter. The important thing is that Sony "won" that war. To that extent, the PS3 was a success.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[OglinTatas]

The company is dead to me now

I have no sony!
* rips garment *

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[ByOhTek]

My boycott started when I had a notebook from them with a finicky touch pad and a power button that slid under the case occasionally, causing it to power cycle until you unwedged it.

I sent it in, they told me it was water damage on the motherboard, and it would cost $1350 to replace it (it was a $1200 notebook). I was very careful to avoid water on that thing.

I said no, they sent it back, and it wouldn't even power on, and the indicator lights didn't light up when I plugged it in. I'm guessing they just didn't bother reconnecting anything after disassembly, but the way the case was set up, even after unscrewing it, you still needed some special tool to open it up, which I couldn't find.

Turns out I wasn't the only one I knew with a similar story... I too look forward to their demise from the world of electronics, and their war on the people who pay them money for their goods and supposedly "services" but in practice "disservices".

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[localman57]

The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.

Eventually, though, Sony may end up with a publishing company through some merger/aquisition, and they'll fuck this up too.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jonwil]

Many people (myself included) who hate Sony because of what their music arm, movie/TV arm and gaming arm have done are boycotting all of Sony.

I will not purchase ANY product that says Sony, Blu-Ray, BRAVIA, Sony Erricson, PlayStation, VIAO, CyberShot, Memory Stick or is otherwise connected to the Sony empire.

I am also going to boycott Sony produced films coming out this year including 21 Jump Street, The Vow, Men In Black 3 (not hard to boycott that one given that I am also boycotting Will Smith because his films suck) and that animated pirates one.

Not sure what the last Sony film I saw at the theater was, only film I have seen in the last 6 months that I cant identify the maker of was the Tintin animated film.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[udoschuermann]

Sony has lost thousands of dollars in sales from me alone over the past few years because of the way they slap their customers in the face, and stab them in the back. Whenever I have the opportunity I calmly explain the reasons why I refuse to purchase Sony's products. I am pleased now that for Sony it has come to this. Yes, Schadenfreude!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[broggyr]

I used to work in the repair dept of a local camera shop about 16 years ago. Sent a sony camcorder to sony for repair; it was *5 days* out of warranty when I got it from the customer. Sony ended up charging full retail for the repair, which was about 75% of the camera cost. The customer declined the repair.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[DreadPiratePizz]

I'm really curious as to why people say blu-ray is garbage. Other than streaming, it's the only way to get 1080p content, and compared to streaming it looks WAY better. It's exactly like DVD but in high definition. It's not even more expensive. I just got a few seasons of Breaking Bad on Blu Ray, and the price was literally the same as if I had gotten DVD.

I don't see any disadvantage over DVD, other than having to have an HDTV. It's hardly garbage. If you don't like the discs or the unskipable menus, you can rip them just like DVD. What's the downside again?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[broggyr]

It's a shame. I remember when they actually made products that were WORTH their premium prices...

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[cpu6502]

>>>Can we all just admit NOW that the PS4 was a failure? ..... pretty obvious that the PS4 can be called the loser ...... Now look at the PS4, the Blu Ray caused them to take a HUGE bath on every unit sold (some estimates have the real cost of the PS4 at $1000 at launch
>>>

That awkward moment when you realize you erased ALL credibility with the readers by referring to a "PS4" console that does not exist. I suspect you have no idea what you're talking about when you refer to Sega Saturns and PS1 "COTS" parts and Xboxes.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[clickclickdrone]

Totally agree. They have an increasing number of tech savvy/politically aware customers *actively* turning their back on them in their buying choices. Sooner or later, that's going to bite,

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[gstrickler]

Heresy! How dare you suggest that customers aren't the enemy. Customers are pirates, they must be treated like the criminals they are. RIAA, MPAA, Sony, and all major Hollywood studios know this.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[SIGBUS]

The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products

Another example, surprisingly enough, is an audio recorder, the PCM-M10. Uncharacteristically for Sony, it accepts MicroSDHC cards as well as yet another variant of the Memory Stick. If I didn't already have an Olympus recorder that does all I need, I might consider it... except that I just can't bring myself to buy a Sony product.

But, just when I thought that Sony might have picked up some Clue, along comes the PS Vita that doesn't even use Memory Stick, instead using a new flash memory format used by nothing else. DIAF, Sony.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Kjella]

Of course, Blu-ray itself is a piece of utter garbage, and as a result has no chance whatsoever of ever reaching DVD's ubiquity

Why, is there something wrong with the discs themselves? 20 GB more capacity than HD DVD, BD+ looks quite broken, you can get a BluRay player for $60 which is probably far less than the TV will cost you. If there's a reason it's not everywhere it's that

1) Not every place needs HD
2) A lot of old content will never be HD
3) Streaming got popular
4) USB sticks replaced a lot of discs

Even now, sales figures look better than they are purely because it's getting difficult to buy a DVD of a new release without buying it as part of a Blu-ray/DVD bundle.

Like you said, they're doing more and more combo deals now instead of gauging an extra premium out of those who want the BluRay like they used to. Eventually the DVD player will break and because they already have so many BluRays people will get a BluRay player, after all it still plays DVDs. Honestly I'd much rather take broken AACS/BD+ over the overly locked down video DRM. Too bad the movie industry didn't end up like the music industry.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[JWW]

What's the downside again?

D fucking R fucking M....

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[__aasdno7518]

Breaking my boycott was a mistake. The company is dead to me now

After the root-kit bit,I've stuck to my guns and never purchased anything from that company. If they go out of business,I'll crack open a bottle of bubbly and celebrate their demise.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

True story: I was once drinking in a bar (I live in Tokyo) and was introduced to the businessman sitting next to me. He said he worked for SCE. Then he said "Please buy a PSP Go". I (being a bit drunk) replied with a slightly-too-direct "No, they're shit". He answered "Yeah, I know, lol".

But it got even funnier from there. I asked him if he knew Kaz Hirai, and he said "Yeah, I work with him, and I see him on a daily basis."
Then he said "Tell me, do you know about RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDGE RACERRRRRRRRRRRRRR?"
After I'd stopped laughing, I was like "Of course... and 599 US DOLLARS etc."
Then he told me that apparently Kaz is known as "Kaz 'RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDGE RACERRRRRRRRRRRRRR' Hirai" inside SCE Japan.

This all ACTUALLY HAPPENED, and I still have the guy's business card right here.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I fell for the Sony GoogleTV. I still think is a nice product, too bad the only one interested in supporting Google TV is Google, not so much Intel or Sony.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[digitig]

The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.

And it has the crappiest ebook management software you are ever likely to encounter, that Sony tries to force you to use by making it run whenever the reader is connected and so locking out alternative ebook management software such as Calibre. Yes, there are workarounds, but why does it need workarounds. Sorry, but I made the mistake of buying a Sony eReader and regret the waste of money. It is nowhere near being a "model product".

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Remus Shepherd]

Both of those examples are in consumer products where Sony is the underdog. They are happy to use common standards and formats when they are trying to compete with a more popular product. But in the products where Sony thinks itself king -- videos and games -- they ruthlessly use proprietary technologies in an attempt to make them the standard.

That arrogance is the root cause of Sony's problem. When they're at the top they act like monopolists, but because they don't actually have a monopoly the market goes bad for them. They'd have a lot more success if they competed fairly when they have both large or small market share.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

To be perfectly blunt, DLNA is another shitty "standard" which needs to go away. Hey, let's take a perfectly fine media streaming standard (UPnP-AV) and stick on a shitload of stupid encoding profiles for no reason!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[HornWumpus]

Other companies used to use Trinitron tube in their TVs.

Now Sony uses Samsung LCDs in theirs.

Sony has fallen on its face with respect to engineering as well as the whole 'infect and sue your customers' thing.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[vonshavingcream]

my boycott started when sega released the saturn to compete

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[FadedTimes]

but DRM doesn't effect 99% of the consumers who buy Blu ray.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[nflenz]

I lost the ability to use the console without agreeing to waive my rights to sue them if they get hacked again.

I still don't get why people think this is a big deal. Do you boycott software using the BSD or GPL licenses? Those make you waive your right to sue as well.

Do you think you would be able to convince a court there were significant damages caused by the PSN outage/hack? I seriously doubt it. PSN is just a free gaming service. They don't guarantee anything.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.

That kind of thing only happens because Sony got a very public drubbing by all concerned for making "MP3 players" that could not in fact play MP3s.

I saw an ad on the train yesterday for a Sony combo radio-and-digital-recorder thing, and it said right there on the ad "You can copy the recorded audio to our computer or portable music player. Audio recording format: MP3" and I thought "Yeah, but not because you want it to be able to, only because you got schooled before".

If that ATRAC shit they tried to pull had stuck, they still wouldn't be making MP3 players, even now.

Also, this is the company that put rootkits on music CDs. Their latest "Pocket" ebook reader is actually quite nice (and finally has a touchscreen, well done lads, it's almost a decade since the iLiad came out, so it's about time you managed to catch up), but I would not EVER trust any product from such a company to not do things that were against my best interests.

In Japan (where I live) there's the concept of the "Sony Timer", a mythical component said to be built into everything Sony sells, which causes the product to break shortly after the warranty expires. It's famous here. Google it up, but you'll need Japanese:

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter. I think it's immoral if it even affects 1% of them.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jamstar7]

After rooting my computer there's no way I'll ever be their customer again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The first time he hits you you're a victim, the second time you're an accomplice.

Sony would argue there's no reason to put a CD/DVD of their content in your computer's tray unless you intended to pirate their content.

6.4 billion in losses? Damn, them pirates are getting good at that shit...

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

they are free, and when you complain people are glad to get the bug fix and if you don't like it you can rewrite. so there

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Rogerborg]

Eh, they just need to tighten their grip.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

MD was initially marketed as a CD competitor. That wasn't too bright because of the compression and the lower quality of the first ATRAC codecs.

Where MD shone was as a Compact Cassette competitor. You could record on portable MD recorders. But they had random access to tracks (like CDs), and let you name tracks, and let you edit audio without having to cut and splice tape or move everything to a computer.

That said, Sony failed to realize MD's full potential. There was the SCMS copy protection (on the standalone recording inputs), and recorder tax, and media tax, as required by the AHRA. There was Sony's slowness to come out with higher-capacity versions of MD (for a while, they were pushing people towards very-high-compression LP2 and LP4 modes), and their inclusion of additional (copy protection / DRM) once they finally did. There was the PC-only nature of the 'NetMD' link, and the larding of this link with DRM ("MagicGate" / SDMI) that was not required by law. The original MiniDisc specifications intentionally separated MD-Audio and MD-Data (so MD-Data withered and died, even as CD-ROM thrived).

The final indignity was when Sony came out with MiniDisc 'recorders' that could ONLY record via the DRM-laden 'NetMD'; they had no microphones and no line-in jacks. At first these seemed to be just cheap models to meet marketing price points, but after a while, they were the only models that most places had for sale. This completed the transition of MiniDisc from a highly flexible recording system to a DRMed substitute for a MP3 player.

These days, you're better off with something like an iPod Touch for music playback, and a professional SD-card-based or hard-drive-based recorder for recording. But once upon a time, MiniDiscs actually did have a purpose.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gilmoure]

I bought a tv last year; floor model close out but that's about it. Have switched to Yamaha for my AV gear for last few years.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gilmoure]

They should merge with Best Buy.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gilmoure]

*golf clap*

Seriously, I was wondering what year it was, reading about PS4' but then again, since I'm old, I'm frequently confused by living in the future now.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gilmoure]

Buy... disks for movies? How retro-chic.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[crazyjj]

Sony will go bankrupt before they learn that lesson. To call them "control freaks" would be an epic understatement.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear you've never had a close relative come to you and ask why their bluray disk just won't play in their bluray player.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[antdude]

Yes, I miss old Sony. I still have old non-powered speakers that still work after a couple decades! I told my parents not to buy a Sony HDTV. I hope they follow my request. Speaking of avoiding Sony, who is the best electronic company these days? It seems many are bad and greedy. :(

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mactard]

DVD has DRM on it too. So does streaming video. Hell, VHS had some copy protection on it too. I understand if you just refuse to consume any sort or media at all, and that's fine. But DRM being the reason Blu-ray is worse than DVD is asinine.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[spire3661]

1080p content isnt worth the hoops Blu-Ray forces you through. On the whole its utter garbage and an insult to modern technology.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[demonbug]

What's the downside again?

D fucking R fucking M....

But DVDs had DRM too, so that doesn't really answer the question of why Blu-Ray is garbage but DVD is okay. For that matter HD-DVD had DRM as well (optional, but it's optional on Blu-Ray too - it's just that every media company uses it), so it really makes no sense that so many people seem to loathe Blu-Ray and wish that HD-DVD had won when Blu-Ray is technically better (by nearly all measures) and both included DRM. You can still rip them if you want (generally considered illegal, but the same is true of ripping DVDs - though fortunately I don't believe there is a single case of a media company actually going after someone for ripping media, only distributing it).

Yes, It would have been preferable if there was no DRM, but I don't believe there are any widely-available alternatives without this "feature" (the only real alternative I can think of is streaming, which doesn't approach the quality and certainly comes with all of the drawbacks of DRM). So saying DRM is the problem when the alternatives also have DRM just doesn't make sense - so why all the hate?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[demonbug]

Buy... disks for movies? How retro-chic.

Pay to rent low-quality streams that require an internet connection to view? How... sad.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[wiedzmin]

Seconded. That's what you get for being a #@$% to your customers - I have made a point of not buying a Sony product when I was shopping for a digital camera and some headphones earlier this year. I have friends who had not bought a single Sony product since their CD DRM fiasco too... It all adds up, Sony, it all adds up...

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gr8Apes]

Boycott? I just started choosing the better product circa 1990. Then when they started doing stupid crap like the memory sticks, rootkits,BD "win" purchase, I chose in each case to buy a standard product, which wound up never being a Sony product, until the last couple of issues, in which I actively make sure I don't support Sony in any way possible, going as far as to recommend anything but Sony even when someone asks about a Sony product, usually by saying, "Well, have you seen product x by y? It does all that, and this extra thing, costs half, and the warranty is twice as long and customer satisfaction ratings are 20% higher" and in 99% of the cases, all of those statements are true,

Sony is one of a few companies that deserves to die in their current incarnations, and it appears that their business practices are reaping just rewards.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Proprietary technology: Sony's history with proprietary technology goes back decades. A partial list:
- Bluray (I still wish HD-DVD had won that war).

2) Purchase of Columbia Pictures (1989):
Several cable companies are falling into this same trap. When a single entity owns both the media and the distribution channel, consumer trust evaporates as the entity inevitably tries to tie the two into a monopoly.

Owning Columbia Pictures helped Sony win the BluRay/HD-DVD war, not that that was a good thing.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jythie]

BSD and GPL licensed software rarely have your credit card number, nor do they generally have the ability to push down 'updates' from a central location that break or cripple your system with no way to backdate.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mvdwege]

Oh, I agree. I tore my hair out when I saw how well Sony was integrating Minolta in its photography division. Finally, we were getting a decent sequel to the DX7D, Sony even fulfilled Minolta fans' long-standing wish for a full-frame camera (and the 900 in the name indicated that this was supposed to be the long-awaited DX9D).

And all this came from the most hated consumer electronics company in the world, one that I with self-respect could not buy from.

I hope they spin off the photography division. But to whom would they do so?

Mart

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[shvytejimas]

Correction, it used to be. Sony bought out the Ericsson share of the venture back in January. Looking at Sony's attitude towards their users, like closing a fan-run blog for trademark reasons, or the case with the Homebrew community on PS3 I expect the attention to developers and the community will fade away in time. Which is a real shame. I was a loyal fan of Ericsson as the handsets were feature-rich and reliable - all the way from their monochrome models, right though the Sony merger up to the Android era, but now I feel it's time to switch.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[thetoadwarrior]

I doubt that's true. From what I read on the register the problems are around chemical holdings and LCD screens and basically anything that's not the PS3 or has DRM. The PS3 is doing well and despite the year lead the 360 had it's caught right up to it. So the supposed war against their customers must be going well.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[theswimmingbird]

I could use another good fucking there.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gilmoure]

You said "rent". You're funny.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I sat shiva for them. They are not alive.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[BenoitRen]

In a way the irony is pretty thick since they fell for the same stupid idea that destroyed Sega with the Saturn.

They fell for the same stupid idea with the PS2 already, as it was hard to program for and cost an arm and a leg at launch. However their marketing and past success with the PS1 was so strong that it didn't matter in the end.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[doston]

For example: If they would honor Trayvon's memory by systematically murdering every white person, including women, children, and the elderly, then I would buy their products.

If they don't do that, then I'm afraid me and my black brethren will be forced to riot and destroy entire states, beginning with Florida. We will burn down your buildings and rape your women. We will kill without remorse or shame. Black power, motherfuckers.

Black power.

Sorry to rain on your black power (oxymoron) parade, but Zimmerman isn't white.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Blue Stone]

I stopped buying Sony CDs with the rootkit thing. I watched from afar at the PS3 thing - swearing to never buy a Sony games console.

I foolishly bought a Sony Bluray player (with xvid/mkv codecs) and was happy. They released firmware to improve it, regularly, then they pulled a PS3-style stunt and silently and without permission installed their shitty Cinavia DRM. Can't roll it back. I caught it one update too late unfortunately. I would never have bought an media player with that functionality built in to it, and yet, somehow, now I paid good money for one and own one!

The lesson: if it has updatable firmware that you either have no control over or must install to continue functionality, NEVER EVER EVER buy Sony, because they will fuck you over for their own ends.

I still own a Sony clock radio from the early 90's and it works perfectly. No updates possible, or course. Would buy one again. Maybe that's what Sony will become - a tiny company who isn't trusted to sell anything more complicated than a non-network connected clock radio.

Oh well!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the downside again?

D fucking R fucking M....

Which is trivially stripped when you rip your titles to your media center. If that's all you got, you lose and you look like a sanctimonious prick.

I guess you never use any Apple iProduct then, nor any commercial software, or any games, or any streaming service, or DVDs. Hmm, come on Mr. Fucking Hypocrite. What cave are you living in?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but DRM on Blu-ray IS way worse than the DRM that is in DVDs.

You just have to get one, and try to use it, to find this out. I admit, I was fooled. Blu-ray is absolutely RIDDLED with disruptive DRM, they make it ignorant and cumbersome to use.

I get that they want to protect their interests. But the people that buy your blurays/dvds are NOT your enemy.

Who loses 6.4B in one year? I won't be sorry to see Sony go, HOPEFULLY something more socially responsible or slightly more customer friendly take their place.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Raenex]

I don't have any sympathy for this case. What's the point of having warranty deadlines if the company is expected to arbitrarily extend them? If customers want an extended warranty, they should buy them.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[initialE]

Myself I wanted to play Little Big Planet, Uncharted, Shadow of the colossus. I wanted one of their sweet MILC cameras, some of the best in the consumer market. I even checked out their walkman wearabes, really good if you're a runner because it's cordless, and really the only player that offers something an ipod can not.
Didn't buy any of them, because I remember what it means to buy a sony. I have a rusting VAIO that had a battery die early in its life, yet not too early that I could get it replaced. So suck it, Sony.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[nflenz]

BSD and GPL licensed software rarely have your credit card number, nor do they generally have the ability to push down 'updates' from a central location that break or cripple your system with no way to backdate.

You don't need to supply a credit card number to use PSN, and I don't really see how them knowing this information relates to a person's right to sue. As for the updates 'crippling' a PS3, I have been using the system for four years now, and this has not happened. The system is still very good for what it was designed to do: playing video games, and watching movies.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jd2112]

Circuit City. Best Buy is too customer friendly.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mcgrew]

Their argument would be stupid. At the time, the only CD player we had in the apartment was the PC, and Sony had to know that it's how many people are. Also that I paid fo rthe damned CD (or rather my daughter did; she bought it at the store she worked in) and had every right to rip it to MP3 so she could listen to it on her iPod.

I'd have been even more pissed if I'd been using the machine to record and burn my own compositions, as many do. That god damned trojan disabled my CD burner (necessary for any musician who wants to give away CDs of their work), P2P software (How am I going to upload Linux distros without BitTorrent? How is an indie to popularize his or her work?) and disabled every single tool an indie musician would need.

There was absolutely NOTHING illegal on my computer. You know what happens when you assume, right?

Sony's war isn't with Pirates, it's a war against their independant competetion. DoJ should go after them for anticompetetive behavior.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Wraithlyn]

My boycott started a decade ago after my first digital camera, a Sony CyberShot, which only accepted Sony Memory Sticks and (very expensive) Sony InfoLithium batteries. :P

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[snadrus]

Sony & Microsoft are against interests & boycotted. Sony's collapse involves choices Microsoft shares: undermidning standards, misunderstanding Premium, 1000 departments making alright stuff all at risk from the few evil ones, monopoly-or-bust mentality.
Sony's collapse will educate us on how to "help along" Microsoft.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Mad Leper]

Most hated among pirates & hackers I would think, actual customers not so much.

The vast majority of Sony's "real" customers (that is, those people who actually pay for and use Sony products) don't have the anger & entitlement issues that you and the remnants of #OPSONY seem to have.

Sony the #1 hated tech company? Citation if you please.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[snadrus]

Best? I'm glad each field has became specialized into their own unique winners. It prevents monopoly that way. I go for Vizio TVs, Viewsonic displays, Motorola Phones (for standing up against MS), Nikon SLR cameras, Build your own PC, Toshiba computer-like things, and anything Logitech makes because it's unbreakable.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Mad Leper]

Pirates are not customers, paying customers are.

If you never use Sony products, then you're not a Sony customer

If you pirate Sony software & media, then you're not a Sony customer

If you hack Sony networks to attack it's members and steal from them, you're not a Sony customer

So who exactly are you referring to when you state "Sony's war on customers" ??

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mcgrew]

But one has to love the irony at all those here that hate Sony for being douches who then have to support MSFT which they can't stand either.

There's no irony, at least in my case. I don't like Microsoft products. I don't like the way they're designed, I don't like their lack of useability, I don't like the "MS way or the highway" feeling I get when I use them.

But Microsoft never (at least to my knowledge) deliberately infected my computer with a trojan like Sony did.

Once bitten, twice shy. Microsoft makes (imo) bad software, Sony is just EVIL.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[VikingOfNorth]

but DRM doesn't effect 99% of the consumers who buy Blu ray.

I've had two computers with blu-ray drives, and neither of them can play blu-ray movies. Unless, of course, you're willing to purchase 3rd party playback software and update it at least twice a year for a modest fee... (Doesn't counter your argument, just points out what greedy f**ks the people at Sony really are)

DVD has DRM on it too

And yet, for some reason, my computer can play movies on DVD just fine, with pretty much any set of playback software I'm in the mood to use. (Yes, I'm running Windows)

The shitty DRM was the sole reason I've given up on buying any more movies on retail formats, and I don't think I'm the only one who made this decision.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[bmcage]

Yeah, Cinavia shit is really annoying. It takes me 3x times the time to rip a dvd than to download a torrent. And what do they gain with it? I just run my stream on the laptop with hdmi out and see it on my Panasonic anyway. So what did they win? Oh yeah, that I won't buy Sony again.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[thsths]

> Other companies used to use Trinitron tube in their TVs.

Absolutely. We paid a premium for a Trinitron TV, and it was worth it. I also had a professional 20" monitor from Sony - expensive, but for a long time the best you could get.

And now? The Bravia brand has a few nice times, but it is being diluted by cheaply made TVs. Anything using memory (sticks, argh!) is a pain to use. The cameras are actually quite nice, but I am not prepared to use Sony memory. They bought Minolta, and I could do with an upgrade, but so far nothing has come up in my price range that would make the step worthwhile. I guess one day I will buy another DSLR... and it would have to be a Sony, unless I want to throw out all my lenses.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[evilRhino]

There is such a thing as forgiveness. At the time, I figured that the root-kit incident had been over 5 years and it was time to give them another chance.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[evilRhino]

I think the big difference to me is the fact that BSD/GPL products specifically do not advertise any fitness to a particular service. They don't run TV commercials saying, you can use their product to play online with your friends, then later effectively shut down their online service unless you accept amended terms.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's more like 100%. Although the crap you have to endure is mostly same shit as in DVDs and some folks are already used to it so they don't know what they could be missing.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because once you put your BR disc in the player and hit "play", the movie starts playing instantly, right?

Contrast that with 1080p content you can download from your favorite torrent website.

When you want to see a movie you've downloaded, just double-click on it and you're set. When you want to see a movie you bought on BR, prepare for waiting times, firmware updates, unskippable trailers and ads, the works...

So... yeah... either you've never used a BR player in your life or you've never downloaded a movie online, if you think they are comparable in terms of convenience (not even taking into account pricing and such).

Simple: no purchase unless no DRM.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gr8Apes]

For some things there is no forgiveness without justice occurring first. Since no heads have rolled, there will be no forgiveness, because now time has become a barrier,

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Eloking]

"Look after the customer and the business will take care of itself"

-Ray Kroc
McDonald's Founder

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gr8Apes]

... Generally lots of cases of Sony obviously trying to cut costs and sell on reputation,

Sony has a reputation all right. Not the kind that helps sell manufactured goods of any sort, except to con artists.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a plastic disc, and contains anti-consumer software. Either point makes it garbage in 2012.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Gr8Apes]

PS3 succeeded. It doesn't matter that on the surface it was loss making. Sony was able to use the PS3 to push BD and kill HD DVD, making BD the high definition optical disc standard.

But that doesn't matter. The important thing is that Sony "won" that war. To that extent, the PS3 was a success.

The PS3 has been a failure by every measure. Sales? Low. Defeat HD-DVD? Failed. Yes, failed. Sony had to resort to selling 51% of its stake in its media arm to raise well over $500M to bribe, er, buy, the BD win. Without that huge investment and who knows what unknown and carryover costs such as capitulating on licensing fees for some of the HD-DVD rights holders that has added to their current financial woes, HD-DVD would have been the winner and we'd all have been better off.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[bloodhawk]

Their electronics division is not doing "quite well" at all. They are losing money hand over fist in Televisions

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

But DRM being the reason Blu-ray is worse than DVD is asinine.

Asinine is pretending that the DRM on Bluray is no worse than the DRM on DVDs. To anyone who isn't being intentionally obtuse, the difference is rather freaking obvious.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[CronoCloud]

The purpose of PS3 was to sell Blu-ray and kill HD DVD, which was disliked (a) because it wasn't a Sony product

Blu-Ray wasn't invented by Sony, it's a consortium format, just like DVD is. Shile Sony and Philips jointly did the original blue diode R&D, the original founding members of the consortium are:

        Sony Corporation
        20th Century Fox
        Dell
        Hewlett Packard
        Hitachi
        LG Electronics
        Panasonic Corporation
        Mitsubishi Electric
        Philips
        Pioneer
        Samsung Electronics
        Sharp
        TDK
        Thomson

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[CronoCloud]

And yet, for some reason, my computer can play movies on DVD just fine, with pretty much any set of playback software I'm in the mood to use.

Yes, your computer can play DVD's...now. If you happened to buy a computer with a DVD drive in 2003 however, you might have find yourself having to buy Third party DVD playing software...just like you said one has to do for Blu-Ray.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[CronoCloud]

Probably your network settings on the player and the PC, the right ports not open, it won't work.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[CronoCloud]

Sony's uses and has been publishing open source for a decade. Every PS3 and PSP has open source code in it. They're quite open source friendly, however, they're paranoid about people using open source and/or their provided sandbox enrironments to pirate their media.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall DVDs or VHS tapes refusing to play on certain screens, or requiring the user to connect their player to the internet for a firmware update before allowing the movie to play.

There's a difference between simple copy protection and DRM - Copy protection doesn't normally interfere with day to day use of a product, or force obsolescence of other equipment. The DRM on Blu-Rays does both. Examples include playback on older HDTVs without HDCP support (more recent releases will not play, even though the TV is capable of displaying the content), on screens using the 'wrong' cable (eg, DVI dual link instead of HDMI), in some cases playback on non-HD TV sets, and trying to play BRs on a PC with a multi-monitor setup - these are all cases where a DRM'd BR movie will refuse to play. Meanwhile, the pirates still pirate the content just fine - there are software packages that will strip the DRM from the discs without any trouble.

DVDs and VHS tapes on the other hand never interfered with normal operation; the schemes in use would never stop someone from playing the film they'd bought. That is why BR is so hated; it may be that other media had copy protection, but outside of gaming it's never stopped people actually using their media before.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

1) When was the last time your DVD player refused to play a DVD unless its firmware got updated?

I'll tell you when: never.

That's why people buy DVDs but don't buy BluRay.

2) Streaming video has DRM?! Then why can I easily download any YouTube video as an .mp4? OH, you meant whatever-it-is-that-Americans-use-nowadays-that-requires-Silverlight (Hulu or Netflix or what was it).

Fair enough.

Do those streaming video websites require you to watch random unskippable trailers and ads before you start watching the show/movie you paid for? If they do, then I feel sorry for people who pay for that kind of service: they're probably the same type of people who buy BluRays, I guess. But I assume they probably don't, which is why people like those streaming websites to begin with: because they're convenient (unlike BluRay).

That's why people pay for those streaming sites but won't pay for BluRay.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Man On Pink Corner]

Warranty deadlines should be used to defend the company against obvious abuse, and to delight customers by throwing them a bone once in a while. From a psychological standpoint, standing behind the product for an extra 5 lousy days would have acted as a form of intermittent reinforcement, one of the most effective conditioning techniques known.

You don't need to be B. F. Skinner or Steve Jobs to grasp these concepts, you just need to not be a complete moron.

Of course, I'm neither a psychologist experienced in behavioral training nor a CEO experienced at losing billions of dollars, so my advice probably shouldn't be considered authoritative.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jheath314]

Sony's rootkit only hurt those people who paid for the CD (the "real customers"). Hackers and pirates, who didn't buy the physical CD, were largely unaffected. Malware authors loved it, because Sony's rootkit opened up a new avenue of attack on the compromised machines of the suckers who paid for it.

You use "hackers" as if it were a pejorative term... to me a hacker is a tinkerer, a tech enthusiast. By pissing off the hackers, Sony has managed to make enemies of the people who used to be its best customers. People like me used to convince others to buy Sony's stuff... now I will go out of my way to convince friends and family not to buy anything made by that piece of shit company.

Enraging nerds like me might not be directly responsible for Sony's damaged reputation and record losses, but it certainly hasn't helped them.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jythie]

While PSN does not require credit card numbers, it did store them, which is something people might want to sue over in event of a breech.

As for crippling, it is not worth arguing if the 'other os' feature was integral or if its removal harmed people, the point was you had no mechanism to backdate, which with the aforementioned BSD and GPL licenses you can always download the source and install another copy if an update breaks something.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh? No it doesn't. The software that Sony recommends is completely optional - you have to manually install it (no autorun) in the first place. Or you can decide not to and just use Calibre as you would expect. I own one (gifted me at Christmas) and although I'd never buy a Sony product personally I have to admit that I have zero complaints and certainly prefer it over a Kindle I once used for a few weeks.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[mrmeval]

Sony isn't worth the effort to save as all you'd be saving is a vicious sociopath that is as amoral and voracious as an amoeba. When it gets done dumping the excrement it's creating by eating it's legacy it will be a starving pale and emaciated blob looking for it's next meal.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[hairyfeet]

Nope sorry and I should know as i actually had one of the very first consumer DVD burners, paid damned near $300, they all came with Nero which gave you the DVD playback software and so did the first integrated PCs. it wasn't until they came out with bare drives a couple of years later your situation could have been possible and by then both Media Player Classic and VLC both played DVD.

And you seem to have missed his point that he isn't pissed about buying the software he's pissed about having to buy it again and again AND AGAIN because they keep fucking with the DRM which is completely pointless as the pirates get around that shit within days so yet again its the consumer that actually buys the product getting buttfucked while the pirates laugh at the sucker. i know after watching how much bullshit a customer was going through trying to keep Blu Ray working on his laptop i said fuck that noise, no BD for me. at least with DVD I can watch it in any player, can rip it onto my netbook, can convert it to a better format for my portables, its better all the way around.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

i stopped buying sony product long time ago. Every freakin time when i buy a sony product, i have to buy a sony product for it to work with sony product. my car mp3 stereo worth 300 bucks only sony cdr works. Their cdr are too expensive and third party cdr does not work. Same with all their phones and camera. their memory card are too expensive

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[digitig]

Eh? No it doesn't. The software that Sony recommends is completely optional - you have to manually install it (no autorun) in the first place. Or you can decide not to and just use Calibre as you would expect. I own one (gifted me at Christmas) and although I'd never buy a Sony product personally I have to admit that I have zero complaints and certainly prefer it over a Kindle I once used for a few weeks.

That's not the behaviour of my Sony eReader.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[hairyfeet]

Bite me, I had just got done reading the ars story on the PS4 and missed a number, like you couldn't still read it? And name a single fucking part in the PS1 that wasn't a commercial off the shelf part, it just didn't use X86. you DO realize there are more parts made commercially than X86, yes? It was a MIPS CPU and the rest of the parts were being used in arcade machines at that time, hence COTS. feel free to look it up on wiki, they didn't start having their own silicon made until PS2, same as the Xbox was a Celeron and a slightly modded geforce 2. And I said the Saturn was NOT COTS but I guess you were too busy bouncing like an ADHD that I had missed a number that you missed that part.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[hairyfeet]

Okay NOW you've confused me. I get that you may not like the UI, or have issues with some designs they went for, hell i could write a list a mile long of things i found stupid from Win 3.x all the way through to Win 7. But "MS way or the highway"? Because frankly I've never seen an OS short of something you built yourself that allows for more modding than Windows. you can strip out whole subsystems, hell there is a hacker that has a version of Win 7 called Tiny7 that fits on a CD and uses 243Mb of RAM! you can even use third party tools like Aston to completely change the shell so it'll look and act like pretty much anything from Win98 to mac to KDE.

But you DO have to admit its pretty funny when we have the M$ brigade on here saying "Fuck $ony!" only to have to...use an M$ console. Like I said I no longer have a horse in this race, i got my family out when they started charging crazy prices for consoles and games and went exclusively PC gaming with GOG and Steam, but you just know it has to kill those ones that look at MSFT as the Empire to have to actually buy and use a MSFT product because if they don't they get assraped by Sony.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Raenex]

Do you have to not be a moron to realize that a warranty is a basic contract for product quality, and not used to defend the company against "obvious abuse"? If some company wants to throw a customer a bone, that's fine, but I'd be ashamed as a customer to expect such a freebie to the point of boycotting if I didn't get it.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Daniel Phillips]

While I have as little respect for Sony as you do, let me point out that bundling Blu-Ray with the PS3 was the key strategic manuever that got Sony ownership of the HD video standard. They understood the cost - a year delay getting the PS3 to market and more than a year of losses on hardware - but they judged it worth it. In retrospect that is not so clear because disks are no longer the favoured delivery medium for HD content. In part because of Sony made the Blu-Ray experience considerably less than compelling for the typical consumer through way too much on-disk advertising and slow load times due to the brain addled decision to make Java part of the Blu-Ray standard. Oh, and annoying DRM and region locking. It all adds up to many potential customers just seeking their video fix by some other means.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the same mistake of buying a ps3 only to be forced to choose between either connecting online or having the 'other OS' feature ... I chose to boycott Sony

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jquirke]

Warranty deadlines seem to be a very typical US-consumer-shafting.

If the product has failed due to manufacturing defect despite reasonable use, then the retailer (and then ultimately manufacturer) is required to replace it. If this is a few days out of the manufacturer's warranty it is usually irrelevant.

See Warranties and Refunds - ACCC

Statutory rights are not limited to a set time
period. Instead, they apply for the amount of time
that is reasonable to expect, given the cost and
quality of the item.

This means a consumer may be entitled to a
remedy under their statutory rights after any
manufacturer’s voluntary or extended warranty has
expired.

For example, it is reasonable to expect that an
expensive television should not develop a serious
fault after 13 months of normal use. In this case,
the consumer could argue the item was not of
merchantable quality and ask for it to be repaired,
even if the manufacturer’s voluntary warranty had
expired.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[jezwel]

I had my Sony 19" Trinitron fail 7 days out of warranty, Sony agreed to pay for the repair if I would drop off the monitor to their authorised servicer and pick it up again. Repair cost was projected at around $400 otherwise, on a monitor that cost some $1800 delivered. Seems warranty policies have been tightened a lot since then.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I *might* buy that if the rootkit had been an atypical gaffe by an otherwise reputable and ethical company. It wasn't. Sony's shabby treatment of customers across its entire product range, overweening arrogance, love affair with DRM, and (both in its own right and via proxy using its membership of the MPAA, RIAA and equivalent organisations in many other countries) is legendary. They hate their paying customers with a passion, and go out of their way to shaft and gouge them at every opportunity.

I am the type of customer they should want - reasonably well heeled, not (usually*) a pirate, and I like gadgets. However, Sony are the vermin of the consumer electronics industry, and it has been 10+ years since they have had money oot of me.

* The exception is Films/Music etc that I want released on a Sony label. I feel it is morally wrong to pirate other stuff, but if Sony doesn't want to respect my rights then I feel no particular moral imperative to respect theirs!

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

And for running Linux, which was after all an advertised feature when some people purchased?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably people like me - former fan boys and enthusiastic boosters of the company (I'm old enough to have purchased a Trinitron and a Walkman etc), who have been kicked in the teeth (MP3 players that won't actually play the MP3 format, rootkits, DRM) so many times by the company we used to give bucket loads of money to that we now won't touch them with a 40 foot pole. I was a paying customer, they treated me with arrogance and shafted me, and now I'm not. Jusging by the comments here, I'm not the only one with this response. That's what the poster referred to by the war on customers.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[JWW]

It's because BluRay's DRM was the New and Improved DRM, upgradable by network (WTF, my player needs to be networked now?).

BluRay DRM is waaaaay worse than the, what turned out to be laughable, CSS.

Sure BluRay DRM has been cracked and will be able to stay that way, but it took longer than CSS to crack.

I didn't get into DVD's until the DRM was cracked and I waited on BluRay until then too. It's just with BluRay, I'm still waiting because it still isn't very compelling and I don't have the time right now to fuck with trying to get it to work on my Linux DVR, which would require utilizing DRM circumvention which, as you said, is technically illegal.

So to close, BluRay isn't compelling to me because of the D fucking R fucking M.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Raenex]

The US generally takes the free market position on what a "reasonable" warranty is, under general supervision of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. It's not the worst idea in the world, as you can usually pay more for products with longer warranties, and you keep the government out of defining "reasonable" across a range of products.

That said, there's also merit in the other approach. I don't see this as a black and white issue. However, living under the free market system, I wouldn't feel entitled to get a product repaired past the warranty. Sure, it would be nice and doesn't hurt to ask, but that's it.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Stuarticus]

For the money I'd definitely recommend a zoom H4-N, better features, better microphones, only a little bit more expensive, and best of all... Not Sony! Good luck Sony, this is my attitude every time someone says they plan on buying your products.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[tomicich]

This. In spades. I have a Garmin Zumo GPS designed for use on a motorcycle that costs over $800 (yeah, I know, but it's waterproof, has mounts for the handlebars and for in the car, etc) My unit's touch screen died and, after troubleshooting with me the support technician asked me to hold on for a moment. When she came back, she said that she had to check with her supervisor for authorization and, even though the 1 year warranty had expired 8 MONTHS AGO they appreciated that I was a repeat customer with multiple units registered to me over the years and they were going to perform the repair at no cost to me. They even sent me shipping labels and a box. Guess who gets high praise any time the subject of GPS's comes up? Guess who gets my dollar for any future purchases, whether for myself or as a gift?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Man On Pink Corner]

It depends on the nature of the failure, but IMHO the ultimate answer is always going to involve standing behind your product.

If a rare or previously-unknown failure occurs 5 days after the end of the warranty period, then a case can be made for enforcing the letter of the warranty. But since it's "rare," the company can fix the problem and make the customer happy at little cost. Even if you jack up prices to make up for all of this generosity, your customers will still thank you.

OTOH, if a widespread failure condition frequently occurs shortly after the end of the warranty period, then strict enforcement of the warranty terms amounts to sticking the customer with a known quality problem. Over the last few decades, the more respected car manufacturers have learned not to behave this way. It's reasonable to hold consumer electronics companies to the same standard.

Either way, every manufacturer's products are going to break occasionally. If you're a dick about warranty deadlines, you will leave a trail of annoyed customers in your wake. Further, if being flexible with warranty terms is costing your company a lot of money, you obviously have a quality problem, not a warranty problem. Taking it out on the customers is not going to pay off in the long run.

In Sony's case, they can sell blowjobs in the alley behind the bankruptcy courthouse for all I care. Karma's a bitch.

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[rhalstead]

They may have won the war, but the company is only worth 20% of what it was when they put out the rootkit and then denied it. Do they have enough muscle to even compete with the "big boys" any more?

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[hoelk]

I'm perfectly happy with my prs-t1 (despite not beeing a big sony fan). Have to say i'm using linux so i'm not encountering any problems with the sony management software by default... but i can't imagine that you cant disable it's autostart. What seems odd is that here in Europe (at least Austria) the ebook store isn't working and there is no way for me to buy ebooks from sony if i wanted to(?). Neither is the inbuilt Google Books module working and so there is no way for me to acquire ebooks via the channels sony provides, which seems like very bad bussiness as compared to how amazon does it

Re:Sony's war on their customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think part of this is, as the parent believes also, that the only consumer visible part of Sony is the electronics division. Fundamentally they are what the company built its name on.

Here's a tip:

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the "revival strategy" include treating customers like intelligent beings rather than dumb fucks? If that's not part of it, Sony is doomed, and good riddance!

Re:Here's a tip:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait.. are you saying there are people who use Sony gear that are NOT dumb fucks????

Re:Here's a tip:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well played, AC!

meanwhile Kazuo said

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did I keep that parachute....
Didn't think I would need it so soon...
Hey did you see a golden thing around here somewhere

Re:meanwhile Kazuo said

[Quiet_Desperation]

I saw something. Might have been a phoenix down.

It's called 'karma'

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope their losses continue to increase. Die you greedy bastards. Before you do, however, give me back my "Other OS". Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell are people so obsessed with the OtherOS crap?
It is terrible for a computer. Really, it is.

You'd honestly be better off buying those accelerator boards with Cells on them if you REALLY need one.
But considering how the STI group buckled Cell to keep it cheap, it isn't as awesome as we would have all wanted it to be.
And it seems that Cell is just dying a slow death in general since, like always, PEOPLE DON'T PUSH THEIR OWN STUFF.
What the hell is wrong with companies failing to grasp SUCH A SIMPLE CONCEPT?
Google are the worst at it. More than 80% of their products are completely unknown to the entire internet. Then they whine that nobody was using it and kill it? No, you guys just failed at what your entire business was built up on, advertising. How an advertising company fails to advertise its own products is beyond me.

You'd probably even be better off just buying a SPARC, or making a cluster of Raspberry Pi boards or something else, if it is the multicore design you are after.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[3vi1]

>> "Why the hell are people so obsessed with the OtherOS crap?"

Because we paid for it, and then got treated to a surprise game of Sophie's Choice with OtherOS or network connectivity for the games we already owned.

If Sony came into your house and disabled even just a seldomly-used button on your remote control, I'll bet you'd bitch about it every time their name was mentioned - regardless of whether you could go out and buy a separate remote for that button or not.

It's not so much about OtherOS as the principle of ownership.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[SDuensin]

Exactly. And I love the description "a surprise game of Sophie's Choice". Gonna steal that. :-)

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Anonymous Coward]

This indeed!

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Gizzmonic]

If Sony came into your house and disabled even just a seldomly-used button on your remote control, I'll bet you'd bitch about it every time their name was mentioned - regardless of whether you could go out and buy a separate remote for that button or not.

Here's the deal: PS3 sucked as a computer. Development of anything interesting (like say, a media player that used the Cell to play MKVs) languished for years. YDL was/is a decent distro, but you weren't going to do anything interesting with it on the PS3. I know, I tried. This coming from someone who uses Linux as my only desktop at work.

If Sony came into my house and took off a button from my remote that I'd never used, I'd be happy because then I wouldn't accidentally hit it anymore. Not that your absurd example has anything to do with what actually happened.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[_xeno_]

Because we paid for it, and then got treated to a surprise game of Sophie's Choice with OtherOS or network connectivity for the games we already owned.

Not to mention the fact that if you chose OtherOS, you can't play any game ever released after they pulled it: all PS3 games come with whatever the latest firmware was at the time they were released. If you try and play them, they'll automatically update the PS3 to the newer firmware version.

So your choice is basically "continue using OtherOS" or "be able to play games." How Sony was able to legally get away with that I'll never know.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[spire3661]

Becasue i PAID FOR LINUX on PS3, THATS WHY. It was MINE, not theirs to decide and in any sane system of government they would not have been allowed to do it.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[spire3661]

Thanks for conceding the argument by attempting to trivialize our point. You lose.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Junta]

Practically speaking, I have to agree that the PS3 is pretty terrible for 'OtherOS', the GPU being relegated to a dumb framebuffer was enough to send me screaming the other direction when considering it as a HTPC-similar environmnet. While the Cell processor has some interesting characteristics, for home usage it cannot reasonably make up for the fact that the GPU isn't intended to be usable. OtherOS with GPU unlocked or Homebrew access to 'the' os might have been interesting, but as it was it was pretty useless. In principle, it was a dick move.

And it seems that Cell is just dying a slow death in general since, like always, PEOPLE DON'T PUSH THEIR OWN STUFF.

Cell isn't dying a slow death, it died a pretty quick death and the PS3 is just a zombie being the sole product with a sales lifespan demanding the Cell processor continue. It wasn't a matter of advertising, cell's interesting capabilities were marginal to begin with (good performance with difficult programming and sufficiently niche to not encourage high volume). Then CUDA/OpenCL yields most of the Cell benefits but on a part with a wider market to amortize the cost over. Cell as a solution just wasn't compelling regardless of the advertising push behind it.

You'd probably even be better off just buying a SPARC, or making a cluster of Raspberry Pi boards or something else, if it is the multicore design you are after.

Probably best off with an AMD Fusion APU based system if looking for a entertainment-system appropriate solution with servicable GPU capabilities. I'm personally waiting to see if the Trinity APUs can be 'crossfire'd with the 7750.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Junta]

Bad analogy. PS3 isn't more powerful, cheaper, more efficient or really much of anything good compared to a low-end PC architecture system that would run circles around 'OtherOS' within the confines Sony permitted. Sony's dick move of GPU lockdown from launch made OtherOS impractical even before their dick move of disabling it entirely. It's still a dick move, but people relying upon OtherOS were already pre-boned and would have been much better served by giving up on OtherOS and doing a cheap PC instead with or without Sony keeping OtherOS around.

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Mad Leper]

Do you have a receipt for that claim that you paid for Linux on the PS3 ?

And the OtherOS removal patch was purely voluntary, if Linux on the PS3 was something so valuable to you that you explicitly paid just for that, why did you go ahead and remove it ?

Re:It's called 'karma'

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that OtherOS was included specifically to dodge an EU tax tariff. Then, when they had sold the consoles, they took it out. For people who like me live in the EU that means Sony cheated us out of our money as well.

No money left to suck up

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have any more to spend on Sony products even if we wanted to.

Karma

[BenoitRen]

Karma is a bitch, isn't it, Sony? May you go down swiftly. I'd love nothing more after all the hostility and the recent rumours of tying PS4 games to the console with required online verification.

Schadenfreudelicious!

[benjfowler]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.

Hopefully they'll go out of business -- and show the world what happens to you when you treat your paying customers like fools and criminals.

Re:Schadenfreudelicious!

[jamstar7]

Hopefully they'll go out of business -- and show the world what happens to you when you treat your paying customers like fools and criminals.

They're just acting like every government I've ever heard of.

Re:Schadenfreudelicious!

[cyber-vandal]

With better marketing you become the world's most successful tech company.

Re:Schadenfreudelicious!

[DiEx-15]

The real icing on this cake is that Sony made Kazuo "Riiidge Racer!" Hirai the CEO.

That's right. The same guy who thought the name "PlayStation 3" would convince gamers to spend $599 on a product that wouldn't play PS2 games yet mysteriously play PS1 games. The same guy who thought people would buy this console for all reasons except games.The same guy who thought "Cell Processing" would be the wave of the fut..LOLOLOL Sorry. I can't say that with a straight face.

However, look at all the good he has done! He showed the world that Sony has ABSOLUTELY NO security!

Or no concerns about its customers...

Or think that the entire customer base is either idiots or "evil" crooks out to steal everything from everyone...

Or that the only thing stopping the world knowing your credit card information is Norton Antivirus that had it's last update back in 2002...

Or selling a "game" system for a major profit lost in hopes people will spend $600 on the future ID Theft Machine...

Or taking it's sweet time to get the PSN back up...

Or ignoring customers' demands for it to have an alternate OS...

Or prosecuting somebody who figured out how to jailbreak it and give customers what they want...

Or demanding and obtaining the IP addresses of anybody who watched any of the guy's videos or went to his website...

Or forcing updates that strip users of pesky things like the right to sue in a class action lawsuit....

Yeah... Sony picked a real winner for trying to stop Sony from losing money.

I knew they should have added more DRM!

[vovick]

Naturally, all blame should go to piracy and insufficient copy protection.

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[localman57]

Actually, a lot of it did go down to that. The protection they used to keep hackers from copying shit off their network was clearly insufficent.

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[paleo2002]

With $6.4B in losses, its possible that actual pirates are attacking and pillaging their shipments, factories, etc. Or its a bit of creative bookkeeping - every downloaded Black Eyed Peas single represents a loss of $18,000 . . . so that's nearly $40,000 right there.

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[hAckz0r]

All DRM is insufficient. Thats because it is 'logically' infeasable to create a "software" system that runs on general purpose hardware that can't be modified by a person having physical access to that machine. Anybody that tells you differently is just selling SnakeOil(tm), and apparently laughing all the way to the bank these days because of companies like Sony. All you need is one ticked-off uber hacker and all the millions you poured into the fancy DRM is all for naught. Its a waste of money if all you do is use it to tick-off the paying user who is just trying to get what they paid for. The DRM itself then becomes the badge of honor for the hacker, and the fruits of their labor will surely get posted where it will do the company the most harm, just in spite. Its human psychology 101. Sony is their own worst enemy, throwing good money after bad, just to tick-off even more customers to get hacked again. Its a vicious cycle for them.

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Expanded version: A group of 19th Century 'doctors' (executives, lawyers, analysts, and marketing quacks) is standing around, discussing the cause of death of the ghostly-white patient ("market"). Finally they agree on a cause: not enough leeches (copy protection, DRM, and other customer-hostile stunts)!!!!!

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[tokul]

Naturally, all blame should go to piracy and insufficient copy protection.

They lost billions, when they tried to add copy protection to chemicals they produce.

Re:I knew they should have added more DRM!

[drkstr1]

I read somewhere (can't remember where, but it was an interview with some exec in charge of DRM at a game studio), that it is fully expected for any DRM measures to be cracked eventually. The goal of the DRM scheme is simply to make it hard enough to crack, so that the cracked version will not be available for at least a few weeks (hopefully) after the release. The majority of a game's profits are made in these first few weeks.

Big Enough To Fail

[Kdansky]

When companies get big, they attract a lot of fat (such as overpaid CEOs) and the people that are actually responsible for the success have less influence. Replacing the CEO will not help, you've just exchanged one kind of cancer for another. Need I mention I'd like 500 million Yen a year for "taking responsibility" in a multi-billion-loss?

Re:Big Enough To Fail

[rgbrenner]

500 million yen == 5 million dollars. A lot... but no comparison to many other overpaid American CEOs.

Re:Big Enough To Fail

[jpmorgan]

If the quality of CEO has no impact on corporate success, that explains why Apple under Steve Jobs was never as successful as HP under Carly Fiorina.

Re:Big Enough To Fail

[berashith]

the valuable phrase was "the people that are actually responsible for the success have less influence". Jobs was responsible for the success both times that he led apple. Fiorina was not any part of the successful building of HP. Your example is prooving the GPs point to be correct. Sony will likely replace the CEO with someone who has been patting the backs of the people who have been leading the company down this rabbit hole. An engineer who is interested in quality is needed, not someone who will use the engineers to protect Sony's content from its customers.

Sony...

[CimmerianX]

C'mon Sony, You're not trying hard enough. If you alienate a whole other group of your users, you can slash 20,000 jobs.....

Treat your customers like criminals that need to be controlled and this is what you get.

Free Market is a bitch, ain't it.

It's kind of ironic...

[msobkow]

it would seem Sony boycotted themselves on the road to insolvency if they don't wake up to the realities of servicing a web-enabled market of distributed systems. Without security and data integrity, people will leave in droves, because they have no option but to put up with whatever lax security is in place this time.

Without their corporate network model, there is nothing to distinguish Sony's hardware from anyone else's except for proprietary cabling, ports, and overpriced equipment as a result. The PS/3 was the first system they ever delivered that didn't go all out to be proprietary in every way conceivable.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the standardized interconnect of digital protocols.

It stopped mattering who you bought your devices from. They all implement the standards as best they can for a price point. Show me an LCD monitor that doesn't do 1080p nowadays, whether it's embedded in a laptop, a monitor, or a television.

I'm just surprised we seem to have stopped at 1080p as a standard just when LCD manufacturing reliability got to the point where we could produce much higher resolution monitors quite easily.

High end displays all compete on lumens and black levels as well as responsiveness (refresh rate.) As technology was cross-licensed and the manufacturing facilities consolidated, what did anyone think? That brand name would really matter all that much in the long run?

People don't forget stupid marketing mistakes like insisting on reporting the Peak Power Level a Sony amplifier can handle instead of the Continuous Power Level ratings used by high-end amplifier manufacturers.

People don't forget having their credit card information stolen.

People don't forget about being without service for over a month.

People won't buy your products just for the tag line "SO, New York!"

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Viol8]

"I'm just surprised we seem to have stopped at 1080p as a standard just when LCD manufacturing reliability got to the point where we could produce much higher resolution monitors quite easily. "

Whats the point? Its already impossible to resolve individual pixels on a 1080 unless your nose is right up against it or the display is something like 40+inchs in size.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the point? Its already impossible to resolve individual pixels on a 1080 unless your nose is right up against it or the display is something like 40+inchs in size.

Or you are using a computer monitor. Or a laptop.

1080p is quite pathetic. I'm using a Thinkpad with a LCD resolution that spanks 1080p no problem. Much more on the screen at one time and everything is clearer and sharper.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't stop at just being nose-touching close. Let's go closer. All the way to the surface of my eyeball, in fact. When you can make the pixels so small that I cannot resolve them when attached to my eye itself... then I'll concede that resolution is high enough.

Why? Because augmented reality contact lenses, that's fucking why.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Viol8]

"Or you are using a computer monitor. Or a laptop."

Sorry, but unless you have the eyesight of a bird of prey then you won't be seing the pixels on a 1080 computer monitor from normal working distance.

"Much more on the screen at one time"

That has nothing to do with the pixel density and everything to do with the applications. You could fit 100 apps on a VGA if you wanted.

"and everything is clearer and sharper."

Can't say I'd ever noticed.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[kimvette]

Really? Exaggerate much?

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

2560 by 1440 on a 27" monitor.
And, in a normal seated position I can make out the individual pixels.

Right now I am on my Dell M6400 Precision Mobile Workstation with a 17" 1920x1200 display. I'm looking at it from about two feet away as a type and I can read it just fine, no problem whatsoever.

Maybe you need glasses, but many of us do not. I'd like higher resolution screens, please!

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Viol8]

"Don't stop at just being nose-touching close. Let's go closer. All the way to the surface of my eyeball, in fact. When you can make the pixels so small that I cannot resolve them when attached to my eye itself... then I'll concede that resolution is high enough."

Your eye already wouldn't be able to resolve them because it wouldn't be able to focus that close.

"Why? Because augmented reality contact lenses, that's fucking why."

And there was me thinking the discussion was about monitors. Are you planning on wearing a pair of them on your face?

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that really they should be advertising resolution in (and competeing on) pixel density, not total pixels.

A 1080p resolution is neddlesly high for the screen on a writswatch, but hilariously low for a billboard sized screen.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Guppy06]

The PS/3

Just a nitpick:

"PS2" is the typical abbreviation for the PlayStation 2, a console built by Sony for playing video games. "PS/2" is the typical abbreviation for the Personal System/2, a desktop computer built by IBM for running OS/2.

Slashes are an IBM thing, not a Sony thing.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Bucky24]

People don't forget having their credit card information stolen.

People don't forget about being without service for over a month.

Sadly enough, yes they do.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[nigelo]

Slashes are an IBM thing, not a Sony thing.

Except for when it comes to jobs, profit estimates, etc.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[TheSync]

I'm just surprised we seem to have stopped at 1080p

The issue is that the video delivery channels (broadcast, satellite, cable, Blu-Ray) got set up for HD @ 720p60 & 1080i30 & 1080p24. It took a lot of effort, and it would take a huge effort to move beyond this.

However you DO see the consumer electronics folks now trying to push 4K displays. They are great for computers, but is there really going to be mass adoption soon for formats that you need double the data to use? Most people get a pretty low-quality experience from streaming Netflix as it is. It will take a few years for the delivery channels to be ready to ramp up in bandwidth.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Asmodae]

"Or you are using a computer monitor. Or a laptop."

Sorry, but unless you have the eyesight of a bird of prey then you won't be seing the pixels on a 1080 computer monitor from normal working distance.

Wow. I don't know about you, but I have pretty bad eyes, and I STILL notice rampant and distracting pixelation on my 24 inch monitor that does 1920x1200 resolution. The pixel pitch is just the wrong side of visible even for sitting at a good distance back. Considering my 15 inch laptop had an SXGA+ screen (that's 1400x1050) the pixel pitch was just fine (meaning I couldn't see them). But 1080p is definately NOT enough for standard monitors if you get ones that are decently sized. My standard was was the height of a 4:3 19inch monitor, but widescreen, and at that simple and usable size, the given resolution is not high enough.

A small step up in resolution would be plenty at that monitor size, but the next step that's typically available is enough for HUGE monitors (up to something like 32-36inches). I consider this a problem, because smaller monitors are too small (i.e. viewable height is reduced from a typical 4:3 19inch monitor) for decent work, web/document viewing, etc.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[mcgrew]

People don't forget stupid marketing mistakes like insisting on reporting the Peak Power Level a Sony amplifier can handle instead of the Continuous Power Level ratings used by high-end amplifier manufacturers.

Indeed, only reporting only peak power is close enough to fraud for me. However, I want BOTH numbers when buying an amplifier. Plugging a 100 watt speaker into an 80 watt RMS amp will blow your speakers if it produces 120 watts peak. Displaying peak power is only to save you from blowing your speakers. But displaying ONLY peak is next to criminal.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[StikyPad]

Monitors. To get something approaching the quality of the printed word, you need a pixel density of ~300ppi, which is 7680x4800 for a 30" screen. Current 30" monitors have a pixel density of ~100ppi, so we're not even at half that.

Also, there's the issue of real estate. It would be great to have monitors larger than 30", but without increasing pixel count, a 40" monitor at 2560x1600 would look like a 20" monitor at 640x400.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

You think the PS/3 was bad? You obviously never had a PS/2.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Standard 21' monitor ~3 feet from where I'm sat, I can see individual pixels perfectly fine and my visions somewhat worse for wear.

Your PC software does a lot of things to try and hide the fact that your monitor is low resolution; anti-aliasing of text edges, use of vector graphics which can also be AA'd. and so on; but there's still spots in icons where you can see them plain as day, and if you actually look at the text in this comment instead of just skimming it you'll see problems in the text as a result; notice how the angled lines in a 'w' look fuzzy compare to an 'l', or how the apostrophes and commas in this text look a little blurry. All of that can be fixed by cranking up the resolution; we can easily do it, but for cost reasons they simply don't bother.

The proof that you can see individual pixels is as easy as watching your text cursor blink; it's only one pixel wide.

Try playing a game on it without AA turned on though and you'd have to be blind *not* to see them.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[msobkow]

Au contraire.

During my first contract position with AVCO Financial Services out of London, Ontario, I was provided one of the first 200 PS/2 Model 80 systems to be manufactured because the Model 60 I had previously was mathematically and provably incapable of running the overnight batch no matter how much performance tuning would have been done.

Ah, those were the days.

Working with SCO engineers to debug the QIC20 tape drives that used a floppy drive controller interface. Pre-1.0. :D

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[toddestan]

I can quite easily see the pixels on any standard-sized desktop LCD display. The highest DPI you can buy is just barely 100 DPI, which is actually kind of sad. Some of the higher density laptop screens are starting to get to the point where it's harder to make out the individual pixels (that's around 140 DPI), but you really have to go to 200 DPI or higher before you can't actually make out the pixels. That's pretty much only iPad 3 and IBM T221 territory.

Re:It's kind of ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... make that FOUR TIMES the data (twice as many pixels in each direction). The people doing 4K for theaters are using a variety of resolutions but I expect the consumer product will be 3840x2160 to allow easy downscaling to 1080p and easy upscaling of 1080p content to fill your 4K display.

4K is one reason to be happy that Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD. Blu-Ray has enough capacity to do 4K video (and even higher capacity upgrades in the wings; 100GB is easy and a 200GB Blu-Ray disc was demonstrated at one point); HD-DVD did not.

Broadcast HD is another possible problem spot for 4K. If you move to a more advanced codec than MPEG-2 the 15-18Mbps available for broadcast HD will be adequate for an acceptable picture, but changing the standard will break the entire installed base of HDTVs. Cable and satellite are even more problematic; they're already sending drastically bandwidth-reduced HD (enough so that it's visibly inferior to the broadcast product) and won't really have any option other than using a lot more bits. And very few people currently have fat enough Internet pipes to stream 4K content; 1080p streaming is already a poor compromise with lots of visual artifacts.

Revival Strategy Suggestion n1

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop screwing your customers.

Too bad for Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

but ultimately good for their (ex-) customers... ;-)

Some hints:

[dargaud]

• Don't put rootkits on my computers
• Don't sell crappy products and then refuse to honor the warranty when they break after 2 weeks.
• Don't sponsor criminal organizations like RIAA/MPAA
• Don't use parts that only _you_ make, such as special batteries and special memory 'sticks'

Then maybe after 10 years, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and start purchasing some of your products again. In the meanwhile reap what you sow.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't talk reason to corporate executives! They're better than you in every way!

343 times better!

Entered as AC since slashdot has become overrun with corporate assholes in the last 3 years.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because those things have totally stopped Apple from being profitable.

Re:Some hints:

[bertok]

This.

Back around 2000, I had a Sony Trinitron 21" monitor, a Sony MP3 player, a Sony digital camera, and a Sony HiFi system. Back then, Sony was the best within a reasonable consumer price range. Then LCD monitors came along, and I got a 24" Dell and chucked the Trinitron. Sony was making LCDs too, but Dell was selling the biggest consumer monitors by far, and for several thousand cheaper too than anyone else. The "MP3" player actually required every track to be transcoded into some proprietary format, and was replaced with a generic Taiwanese-made player that cost a digit less and stored ten times more on a generic flash card that cost 1/3rd as much per megabyte as a memory stick. The camera was replaced with a model that had interchangeable lenses and compact flash, because most Sony digital cameras (up until recently) had a single fixed lens and didn't take anything other than memory sticks. I was using the HiFi amp until recently, when I discovered that even though I was using it with only digital inputs, the output has a lot more noise than the headphone jack on the motherboard of my PC, fed by a built-in sound "card" that's probably a single chip that cost $2.

You watch, the same thing is going to happen to Apple too. Oh sure, they're making the best stuff now, but they'll go down the same way in a decade or so. Sure, an iPad is the best tablet on the market at the moment, but in a couple of years Asus or Samsung or whoever will be making something with twice the spec, half the price, and it won't be limited to Apple(r) Approved Quicktime Data Formats(tm) only.

Re:Some hints:

[am 2k]

On the risk that I may sound like an Apple apologist (I'm far from one!):

• Apple only protects their OS, they do not hide files from you on Mac OS X.
• Apple tries to produce good products (even though they fail a lot at that), but generally honors the warranty.
• They don't sponsor the RIAA/MPAA (only indirectly by giving the member companies an outlet to sell their stuff). What Steve Jobs did was dragging them to digital distribution kicking and screaming. Without Apple, I guess we still couldn't buy music online legally.
• Apple was the first to fully adopt industry standards like USB and Thunderbolt, while creating their own industry standards like IEEE1394 (FireWire) and OpenCL. They were the first cellphone maker to use the 3.5mm audio connector. Their cordless mice and keyboards all use standard batteries.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sponsor the RIAA. And then implement SOPA, and go to live in a world where the Internet does not even work.

Typical RIAA shill nonsense.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

On the risk that I may sound like an Apple apologist (I'm far from one!):

• ...
• Apple was the first to fully adopt industry standards like USB and Thunderbolt, while creating their own industry standards like IEEE1394 (FireWire) and OpenCL. They were the first cellphone maker to use the 3.5mm audio connector. Their cordless mice and keyboards all use standard batteries.

They weren't the first on the 3.5mm connector. The Blackberry Curve had it before the first iphone came out, and I remember a couple of WinMo phones with them around that time as well.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

"They were the first cellphone maker to use the 3.5mm audio connector. "

Yeah, right.

Numerous phones had 3.5 mm jacks even before the first iPhone was released. Years ago.

Re:Some hints:

[madro]

Steve Jobs admired Sony (before they went bad) and built Apple with a similar focus on the consumer. It's not a foregone conclusion that Apple will follow Sony's fate -- how well has the current Apple leadership learned from Jobs? will the next generation of innovators see Apple as a place to build cool things? (versus Google, or Amazon, or -urk- Facebook?)

But the usual trajectory is: founder leaves, the immediate replacement does pretty well, but after that leadership is only able to see what worked in the past and not what needs to change to be successful in the future.

20 years ago, I was an Apple guy seeing Windows 3.1 and thinking "Not as good as my Mac, but ..." I'm having similar thoughts about the Kindle Fire and Android now. In between, Apple nearly died out (when Jobs was gone). I think the near-death experience will keep Apple from getting too fat and happy over the next decade, but in the long term, who knows?

Re:Some hints:

[bobetov]

Just want to say as a (very regretful) MacBook Pro owner:

I went to upgrade my 4GB RAM to 8GB because my top-end laptop couldn't function without it, and was quoted FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS for the upgrade.

$400. Just gonna lay that out there. The price of a top-of-the-line Transformer Prime tablet, soup-to-nuts.

I declined(!) and bought some RAM at Best Buy, plus a jeweler's screwdriver, and had the thing upgraded for $70. And got a nice screwdriver in the bargain.

Everything you posted may be true, but it doesn't make Apple a good company.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the hardware that matter but software ecosystem that Apple is building IMHO

Re:Some hints:

[gaiageek]

Apple tries to produce good products (even though they fail a lot at that), but generally honors the warranty.

They also try to produce products that are extremely difficult for a consumer to service or repair themselves.

Apple was the first to fully adopt industry standards like USB and Thunderbolt, while creating their own industry standards like IEEE1394 (FireWire) and OpenCL.

Show me an iPhone with micro-USB connector. Apple actually voluntarily agreed to conform to the new EU standard that all phones should be chargeable by micro-USB, then "conformed" by releasing a micro-USB to 30-pin adapter (available as a separate purchase, of course).

They were the first cellphone maker to use the 3.5mm audio connector.

See Motorola ROKR, released 2006 - and I don't cite that as the first phone to use a 3.5mm connector, just one example which pre-dates the iPhone by over a year. I'm quite sure there are earlier examples.

I've often drawn parallels between Sony and Apple, and as others have already said here, I think what Sony is going through now is only foreshadowing what will happen to Apple.

Re:Some hints:

[spire3661]

Exactly, hardware differentiation is coming to a crushing end. Its all software from here on out.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you're referring to their desktop/laptop division. They still currently take about 10-15% global marketshare (if that). They're absolutely in no position to force people to use their own proprietary tech. With the i-platform (which they're moving their desktops in that direction), they do everything to lock you in: proprietary cables, no battery, no expandable memory (even their own standard), bloated computer-based management software, etc.

Amazon only sold MP3s without DRM. Apparently, APL didn't drag them kicking and screaming -- more like pat-on-the-back since it would only work with one company. As for online mp3 selling in general, oops, wrong again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_music_store. Plenty of stores were around.

They STILL *SELL* DRM encumbered videos (DRM on rentals actually make sense).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS_connector Wiki says Nokia started the 3.5mm audio jack in 2006, well before any mention of any thing.

As for USB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#USB_1.0 OOPS, "non-standard USB extension cables with some of their computers, for use with the included ... keyboards". Wrong again.

Thunderbolt is also not an industry standard (yet). It can't be an industry standard by definition when only one company has access to the platform. Considering that TB was not jointly developed by more than just two companies, I'd even argue it's a proprietary standard (based on a proprietary DP hardware interface)

So your non-apologist voice sounds a lot like the normal apologists: they don't actually do any fact-checking, spin half truths, and praise them for things they never really did.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

So because they want to charge lazy ass people a shit ton of money for something you can do for 25% of the price, they are a bad company?

I should tell my mechanic to stop charging so much for changing oil.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of this is true. Too bad their TRRS cables are not compatible with stand 3.5mm audio connectors. Too bad iPhones and iPods do not have replaceable batteries.

Re:Some hints:

[HungWeiLo]

Even by 2000, Sony was already getting its lunch eaten by the likes of Panasonic and Samsung.

The quality slide had started by the mid to late 90's, corresponding to their offshoring away from their Japanese factories.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure that is how much you pay if you get a quote for someone to do the work for you. Heck I would have quoted $600 if it ment you would have got out of my shop faster. And guess what... Some people still pay that.

Re:Some hints:

[berashith]

I think this is what started the downfall. Someone at Sony, many years ago, came to this same conclusion. The strategy to avoid being just a hardware company pushed them to purchase media companies. Too bad that they forgot what they were , or tried to hard to change into something they are not. Next is to follow IBMs lead and just jetison most of the hardware.

Re:Some hints:

[Truedat]

Oh sure, they're making the best stuff now, but they'll go down the same way in a decade or so.

Ten? Twenty? Thirty??? I give up, you've awarded yourself a lot of leeway in which to be right.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just want to say as a (very regretful) MacBook Pro owner:

I went to upgrade my 4GB RAM to 8GB because my top-end laptop couldn't function without it, and was quoted FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS for the upgrade.

$400. Just gonna lay that out there. The price of a top-of-the-line Transformer Prime tablet, soup-to-nuts.

I declined(!) and bought some RAM at Best Buy, plus a jeweler's screwdriver, and had the thing upgraded for $70. And got a nice screwdriver in the bargain.

Everything you posted may be true, but it doesn't make Apple a good company.

They print the instructions for upgrading your own fucking RAM right in the manual, with pictures and everything.

Heck, that's practically the only thing in the manual, aside from a diagram that shows you where to stick the power cord and where the power button is.

If you can't follow those instructions, then yes, they have a convenient retail store right in your own hometown where you can bring your computer and they will upgrade your memory, tie your big-boy shoes for you and hand you a lollipop. And yes, they'll charge you four hundred bucks for the memory, eighty bucks for tying your shoes, and twelve dollars for the damn tootsie-roll pop.

Grape is a dollar extra.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

A few comments on your post:

1) RAM is one item where Apple traditionally has fair upgrade prices.
2) My 2006 MBP with 2GB RAM runs Snow Leopard with no problems and is still going strong. I find your claim that your MBP wouldn't function with 4GB dubious at best.
3) Surprisingly, Apple generally makes it very easy to replace the stock RAM, as you discovered.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your complaint is pretty darn lame.

Re:Some hints:

[cyber-vandal]

Yes they are. And when they charge 100GBP (or 599GBP if you made the mistake of buying a iPhone/iPad without enough storage) for an extra 16GB of storage that costs 10GBP on Amazon they are much much worse. Being a rip-off merchant is always wrong even if people are gullible enough to fall for it.

Re:Some hints:

[cyber-vandal]

Or any way to add extra storage. That and the annoying exclusion of things like Swype are the main reasons why I have a Galaxy S2. The iPhone is a nicer piece of hardware, but for shooting videos or taking lots of photos, 16GB is not enough and 100GBP extra for another 16GB is a piss take.

Re:Some hints:

[Daniel Phillips]

Do fix my PS3 when it breaks.
Do not humiliate me when I seek product support.

Re:Some hints:

[am 2k]

Replaceable batteries or a built-in SD card reader would mean adding extra hardware and an access port, which would mean a bulkier phone, a worse product.

Re:Some hints:

[BasilBrush]

You've got a PS3? They're manufactured by Foxconn. Yet more hypocrisy from Daniel Phillips, 834 2nd st, Suite 6 , Santa Monica, CA 90403.

Re:Some hints:

[Daniel Phillips]

I may well junk the PS3, as I have learned that Sony is made from the same moral stuff as Apple. By the way, you are treading on the wrong side of the law. Just a warning. Do not assume that your anonymous nick is a shield. And do not let Apple set your moral, or legal compass.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

Cameras are one place where Sony is actually making some good products. Not their point and shoot line where they continue to use those stupid proprietary Memory Sticks, but their DSLR and EVIL (electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens) cameras. They especially shine in the latter category, where their NEX line is quite possibly the best product on the market right now.

On the other hand, they are losing ground in camcorders, formerly a strong point for Sony - admittedly a market that is dying as a mainstream product as more people use a phone, point and shoot, DSLR, or EVIL to shoot video instead of a dedicated camcorder. Canon seems to be the strongest player in that dwindling niche, though Sony and Panasonic continue to make products for now.

And I still like their Sony Vegas video editing software. That's an example of a market where they had the good sense to acquire a company (Sonic Foundry) and then pretty much leave it alone aside from slapping the Sony name on its products.

Re:Some hints:

[BasilBrush]

I may well junk the PS3, as I have learned that Sony is made from the same moral stuff as Apple.

It's good that you're actually engaging in discussion now. But that action won't help. If manufacture of products at Foxconn is indeed bad for workers the damage was done at time of manufacture. But by your theories it's not just Sony is it? As far as Smartphones go, 70% of them manufactured in Chinese factories are Android. Are you going to throw your Android phone away too?

By the way, you are treading on the wrong side of the law. Just a warning. Do not assume that your anonymous nick is a shield.

Does the word cartooney mean anything to you?

It's perfectly simple. You decided to be abusive, by using this forum to post off topic links, in the place of discussion. Because you knew you couldn't win the argument, because your argument had been based on the lies of Mike Daisey.

The bigger truth as you've let slip in by wht you've linked is that you don't really care about chinese workers, so the truth on that topic doesn't matter to you. Rather you're just playing platform advocacy trolling. You're a fan of Linux, and so by extension you support Android. And like a sports fan you want to do the opposition down. That's the reason for your trollish links.

You thought you were untouchable. That you could troll, and be untouched. But you were wrong.

Be a reasonable human being, Daniel, and you wouldn't bring it upon yourself. Doesn't mean you have to stop criticising Apple. Just do it via on-topic discussion rather than off topic links without discussion.

Or don't. But if you don't, don't expect cartooney threats to put me off responding in kind.

Re:Some hints:

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, the gumstick style cells were a clever solution to the problem of making a pocketable CD player.

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[CimmerianX]

I wouldn't wish a VAIO upon my worst enemy.

I spent more time de-crapifying VAIOs than actually prepping them for the end-user.

"revival"

[harvey the nerd]

Sony was once a great company. I am afraid, like most big companies, they are long past their founders' vision and values. Even reviving Akio Morita might not revive the company.

Re:"revival"

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen this guy's track reckon for the PS3 haven't you? The company is seriously doomed.

Re:"revival"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony was once a great company. I am afraid, like most big companies, they are long past their founders' vision and values. Even reviving Akio Morita might not revive the company.

Akio Morita was an engineer through and through. Sony did things because they could. To show technical excellence. Consider the smallest world band radio receiver ever. It's a Sony product. It is smaller than the actual antenna for pete's sake. And they did it because it was cool, and because it was a cherised project of Morita. Just like the Walkman.
That kind of thinking is all dead and buried.

Sony nowadays is shit, instead of coming from Cina or Vietnam it comes from japan.
But still shit it is.

Maybe they'll learn ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll learn to stop making their devices with proprietary connectors and storage so that people can chose Sony products without committing themselves to replacing all of their electronic equipment and storage cards. I doubt it.

C'mon, Sony!

[bbbaldie]

You call that a LOSS? Geez, you can do better than THAT!

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[Anonymous Coward]

VAIOs don't have the Cell architecture. Try again.

couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch

[Anonymous Coward]

couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of customer abusing malware installers

Shoulda not bought a movie studio....

[anomaly65]

Sony's decline began with purchase of a movie studio. The company that once was Betamax and Walkman (and championed fair use for the consumer!) is nomore. Since that time, has anyone purchased a solid sony consumer product that isn't laden with burdensome DRM?

Burdensome in that your own mother simply cannot find a way to fairly enjoy a paid for piece of entertainment on a product meant to display or play entertainment from Sony? "my mom isn't a criminal, so stop treating her and all your other potential customers like one"

Re:Shoulda not bought a movie studio....

[Daniel Phillips]

Sony's decline began with purchase of a movie studio.

When they finally collapse that is likely all they will have left, that and the Little Big Planet franchise.

Bu11$h1T

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to be used as fodder to shove some form of SOPA up our collective arses.

Poor software, proprietary hardware, no surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

PS Vita and its proprietary, overly expensive memory cards are Sony's latest brain lapse and example of backwards thinking. All consumer products in this day and age use SD cards, well other than Sony products which also use memory sticks, but at least you can use Memory Sticks in other Sony products. The Vita cards can't be used in anything else. The 1980's called and wants its business model back.

As far as software goes, the PS3's XMB hasn't changed in years and is a usability dinosaur. While some of Microsoft's dashboard changes have been hit and miss, at least they are coming up with new ideas and attempting to improve their UI (other than the annoying ads of course). Then there is the removal of features and "its not our fault if we get hack and lose your data" TOS.
 
Sony used to make great devices, but I won't touch their products anymore. Samsung is what Sony used to be.

Problems stem from trying to be a media company.

[guidryp]

While the media wing may not be what is losing money today, it is their Big Media stake that is ruining the electronics company.

From lost focus on developing the best HW for consumers and Spending time on things that electronics enthusiasts have come to hate them for (Rootkits, DRM, supporting MPAA/RIAA).

Being a part of the MPAA/RIAA, Sony electronics now thinks first about DRM and second about customers. So PS3 is the first device to get Cinavia, and yet it still won't play .MKV files. Making it somewhat crappy as a media player.

If Sony hadn't jumped into the media game it would have been better focused on building devices people want, there would have been no Rootkits, no membership in MPAA/RIAA. If that Sony hit hard times, we might actually be sad. But instead Sony Media/Electronics is an unfocussed anti-consumer juggernaut that we get joy seeing go down the tubes.

If rumors are true about PS4, Sony's war on consumers is going full force with zero backward compatibility and technology to block used games.

IMO they deserve to go down the drain.

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[tacokill]

Agreed. A few years ago, we bought some very nice Vaios for some of our users. NEVER AGAIN. Not only is crapware an issue but the hardware itself is flaky.
Since then, we replaced them with Lenovos and wow....the difference is night and day.

Sony should be a case study at Harvard Business School on how not to do business as a "technology" company. Almost everything they do is customer-hostile, including their continued insistence on using proprietary technologies when the entire world is moving towards more openness.

sylvania beat sony again?

[Anonymous Coward]

sylvania beat sony again?, this time into the ground?

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[tepples]

VAIOs don't have the Cell architecture.

Nor did the Super NES have Blast Processing(tm). What can a Cell do that, say, an i7 can't?

The fall of A/V companies

[Gizzmonic]

Traditional A/V companies are all doing pretty poorly. Like most consumer products, there's no middle ground anymore. It's all super cheap crap fresh off the boat from China or expensive custom boutique stuff. Sony is neither one of these, and I don't suspect they'll survive in the long run.

Someone will pay big bucks for the Sony name, but that's the only thing that will be left: a name that bears no resemblance to the original innovative company (see also: Zenith, RCA, Atari).

Re:The fall of A/V companies

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really it in a nutshell. Welcome to the NWO of economics.

Re:The fall of A/V companies

[k6mfw]

> Traditional A/V companies are all doing pretty poorly.

It seems when looking at NAB show in Las Vegas, http://www.nabshow.com/ AV companies showcase lotsa fancy video gear that is lotsa bux and exhibits occupy almost all of the Las Vegas Convention Center. But damn (I've have yet to attend) I've heard there is so much equipment being showcased. Expensive? If you have to ask, you cannot afford it. So somebody(s) must be doing very well, unless it is all marketing hype (so where does all this money come from?).

Re:The fall of A/V companies

[soundguy]

NAB is "National Association of Broadcasters". If you have to ask the price of an Arri, Red, or Sony cinema camera, a 100,000 watt transmitter, green-screen compositing software, room-sized media storage arrays, etc you probably can't afford it, and that's to be expected. You're probably not in the industry anyway. It's fun to look at that stuff though. A single broadcast or cinema camera runs upwards of 6 figures, so that's probably what pays the rent at multi-market companies like Sony.

Exhibitors also include JVC, Canon, and Panasonic who make a ton of consumer crap, semi-pro gear, and very high-end professional gear. They showcase all of their lines at NAB, which is nice for people trying to decide between consumer crap and semi-pro. CES generally concentrates on the consumer lines and is aimed at retailers. NAB's focus is more about content creators and infrastructure operators.

The LVCC is about 2 million square feet. Bring good shoes and salt tablets so you don't have to piss too often. The restroom facilities are criminally inadequate for a facility that size. I'm arriving Saturday so I can do laps around the strip for a couple days to get in shape.

Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention Sony.

We are Anonymous
We do not forgive
We do not forget

You should have expected us.

This should be their "announcement" -

[fallen1]

Sony CEO -
"Effective immediately, Sony Industries will be shutting down our Entertainment division until such time as they can be taught never to sue another division of Sony or our customers. Ever. Our Electronics division will now be at the forefront of Sony's drive to become competitive again. We will be looking back to what made us a great company and learning from the mistakes we made from that time until today.

We will be firing anyone with an MBA degree who does not understand that short term profits and suing our customers is not a good business model.

Furthermore, we would like to apologize for fucking over our customer base these past ten years or so. We will be removing all DRM from our products as a way of apologizing and all of our electronics now come with a "Please, hack me!" symbol on them."

Yeah, we can dream - can't we?

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[hairyfeet]

Geez, why not offer him a kick in the balls while you are at it? the quality in the Vaio sucks and their support is terrible. get an Asus or Acer, much better, or an HP business model, those are nice. but a Vaio? Crap on a cracker. which is of course one of the main reasons Sony is bleeding to death, where once their brand meant quality they raced to the bottom on quality of the hardware only they kept the upmarket price.

Akio Morita

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

He did more than being an engineer. Taking a job as a retail consumer electronics salesman showed he was passionate about customers and about understanding them.

His biggest flaw was in not arranging appropriate succession.

Re:Akio Morita

[bingoUV]

No, reading his autobiography shows he had all the makings of modern Sony. He was dead against getting into price wars - and price wars benefit customers. He didn't let his dealers sell Sony stuff at a low price even if buyers didn't see value in it.

Moral of the story

[liquidweaver]

Profiteering at the expense of customer experience = short term gains, long term losses.

Imnsho, Terrible Reliability=FAIL

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony made good stuff once upon a time.

That was last century. Any electronics product that lasts barely more than the warranty period (I have had many big-name products fail just after warranty expiration) is utter garbage and a waste of customers' money.

F--- you to all the companies building cheap (as in cost-saving to the manufacturer) shit in Far East Crapistan or anywhere. You're all off my list and have been for years. Go fuck someone else.

Now, as for Sony music, I have this to say: DIE, DIE, DIE, scumbags!

Have a nice day.

sony rootkit

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit

never forget, never forgive

Re:sony rootkit

[Anonymous Coward]

never forget, never forgive

never change ?

No, we are Anonymous Coward

[readandburn]

We do not fornicate.

Re:No, we are Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

From my parents' basement in New Jersey I stab at thee...

Footprints in the Sand

[ctusch]

(Adapted from the widely overused 'Footprints in the Sand' poem.)

One night I dreamed I was sitting in front of my computer next to Sony.
Many scenes of past contact with Sony products flickered across the screen.
In most scenes I noticed some form of DRM helping me managing my digital rights,
but in some there appeared to be none at all.

This bothered me because I couldn't understand why Sony wouldn't care for some of its intellectual properties.
Especially music CDs seemed to be completely unprotected. So I said to Sony,

"You promised me, that if I bought your products, you would always help me protect my digital rights.
But I have noticed that especially IP in dire need of protection, like music CDs, has had no protection at all.
Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

Sony replied, "The times when you didn't notice any kind of DRM, my child, is when I rootkited you."

Sony holdings

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=sony

Sony Pictures Entertainment (Film)
Columbia Tristar Motion Picture Group
Columbia Pictures
Sony Pictures Classics
Screen Gems
TriStar Pictures
Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia
Columbia Films Producciones Espanolas
Columbia Pictures Producciones Mexico
Sony Pictures Animation
Sony Pictures Imageworks Interactive
Sony Pictures Studios
Sony Pictures Technologies
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Releasing and Sony Pictures Releasing International
Sony Music
Columbia/Epic Label Group
American Recordings
Columbia Records
Epic Records
Roc Nation
Star Time International
RCA/JIVE Label Group
Arista Records
Battery Records Black Seal
J Records
Jive Records
LaFace Records
Polo Grounds
RCA Records
Verity Gospel Music Group
Volcano Entertainment
Provident Label Group
Beach Street Records
Essential Records
Flicker Records
Reunion Records
Sony Music Commercial Music Group
Legacy Recordings
MASTERWORKS
RCA Red Seal
RCA Victor
Sony Classical
Sony Music Latin
Day 1
Sony Music Latin
Sony Music Nashville
Arista Nashville
BNA Records
Columbia Nashville
RCA Nashville
Music Choice Video and Mustic Network
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
SYCO (Partnership)
VEVO (Partnership)
Sony Pictures Television Group
Crackle
SET Africa
SET India
SET Latin America
SET Max
SET PIX
SET Portugal
SET Russia
SET Singapore
SET en Veo (Spain)
SAB
AXN
AXN Mystery
Animax
Channel 8
Cinemax (Latin America)
Cinemax Brazil (Latin America)
Cinemax Prime (Latin America)
FEARnet (US)
GSN (US)
HBO Brazil (Latin America)
HBO Caribe (Latin America)
HBO Family (Latin America)

Pay better attention to security

[gubers33]

PSN going down for an entire month probably hurt a little. They refused to secure their network prior and then when it did go down they drug their feet through the crap they were shoveling to get it back up. Their customer support will continue to go down the crapper as they care more about the RIAA and MPAA than the customers.

Their branded price premiums are unwarranted

[gelfling]

An almost universal problem that Sony has on the consumer electronics side is their branded price premium. Item for item across their entire product spectrum they attempt to collect a price premium just because the name on the widget says "Sony" and while that might be true some of the time for some models of some products it's never universally true for everything. And even where the products they sell are premium price and they are better, are they THAT MUCH better? Usually no. Let's face facts, most PC's all come out of the same 4 factories. Most TV's come out of the same 6 factories and so on. And while manufacturers can often spec their own production runs to be a little bit better or a little bit unique a-la Apple, it can't possibly be true for everything all the time.

Re:It's called 'VAIO'

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost alot extra and have the ability to have features pulled out from under you after you paid for them?

Oh you wanted good things? Sorry. I can't find any of those.

Sony Fails...

[thedarb]

...because caucasions are too damn tall.

Re:Poor software, proprietary hardware, no surpris

[tomstockmail]

If Sony does anything to the XMB they'll probably just fuck it up. I prefer it stays the same.

Karma's a bitch

[TheRealQuestor]

Couldn't happen to a more deserving company.

I only have one thing to say...

[TheSync]

Interlaced display formats should be eradicated.

I just purchased a Sony DSC-HX100V superzoom camera that advertised 1080p60 video recording.

Guess what? It records 1080i. It comes with windows-only software to deinterlace it. Which means my workflow is very painful.

What is it with interlace? No one has CRTs anymore!

[I forgive 1080i30 ATSC A/53 broadcasters, as we're stuck with 720p60 or 1080i30 in ATSC countries - but no need to capture interlaced, capture and edit progressive, and let your MPEG-2 encoder do the 1080i compression if you must!]

I can proudly say...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite proud of the fact that I have broken myself of overt Sony products. Having been one of the people's who's credit card information was lifted in the 2011 debacle. We swore we were done with Sony. I couldn't be happier to see them taking a massive loss. I do feel bad for the workers that are more than likely going to feel this loss in waves of layoffs.

Re:Problems stem from trying to be a media company

[gnasher719]

While the media wing may not be what is losing money today, it is their Big Media stake that is ruining the electronics company.

Apple made billions and billions selling iPods. That could have been Sony instead, but their media business made sure that Sony music players couldn't play any music from Sony Media for fear there could be any illegal copying.

Sony could have made ten times more by selling tons of music players and give away all Sony music for free to their customers.

Loss?

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Can someone please explain to me how "decreased projected income" became "loss"?

Connected?

[slapout]

"slash about 10,000 jobs by the end of the year...annual net loss to a record $6.4 billion"

So they're expecting the people who were laid off to walk out with $6.4 billion in office supplies?

Re:Poor software, proprietary hardware, no surpris

[spire3661]

Flat out, the memory card thing is solely so they could hit the $250 price point. Without it, they felt they would have to charge $300 for a PSVITA

As much as I hate to break this hate fest of sony

[nhat11]

Other companies also calling in loses like Sharp and Best Buy. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/sony-sharp-shares-plunge-on-record-annual-losses-tokyo.html Is the point of posting this type of news just to bash Sony or a company that you like to hate?

Re:Problems stem from trying to be a media company

[maple_shaft]

I hate the rootkits, DRM and proprietary formats as much as the next Slashdotter, but I am shocked just how out of touch people are about what is really hurting Sony right now.

The average consumer of electronics is not concerned with these things. The average consumer of electronics barely knows how to hook up their BluRay player let alone even tell you what DRM means. Electronics have become a commodity item to where differential in quality between brands and features is nearly non-existent. Because of this the only driving force in the success of the product is the ability to sell it cheaper than your competitors, Eg. slave labor in China or Taiwan.

This is why Sony and any other electronics manufacturer could give fuck all about what a bunch of nerds think about their rootkits and DRM.

War on customers works for Apple and Microsoft

[walterbyrd]

Apple and MS are just as nasty to their customers as Sony. What about Comcast?

Re:Problems stem from trying to be a media company

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod this man up.

As someone that actually owned one of those late-generation MiniDisc players (before MP3 players based on flash-memory became ubiquitous) that you could fill with music (after transcoding to tasty ATRAC, using SonicStage (*shiver*), and having to put up with the stupidest form of DRM ever), I have to agree in full. In fact, I stopped buying Sony even before the rootkit story, just due to the stupidly awful DRM (that was trivial to bypass anyway) they used on that device (and others after it).

Sorry Sony, but I will *not* put up with SonicStage (*shiver*), when I can buy a better player than yours at half price that doesn't require me to use SonicStage (*shiver*).

Not only was Sony considered Apple-like cool and hip back in the days (i.e. good and fashionable brand and products), they had something Apple didn't have: content to bootstrap their store and gain the required momentum to force other content providers to join.

They certainly could have been Apple, when it comes to the iPod, but... yeah... schizophrenia is fucked up.

And here's hoping ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that my decision to purchase a Samsung TV, rather than one from a company known to install spyware on people's computers without their permission and then refuse to apologise when caught, played at least a small part in that.

Not that I'm saying Samsung have never done anything wrong, just that I've not heard of it :-)

Well Done

[Anonymous Coward]

This loss could not have happened to a more deserving cause

MFG, omb

It appears you have a point

[tepples]

So it appears you have a point: Sony's devices that can run Linux are just as bad as its devices that can't.

Re:It appears you have a point

[hairyfeet]

You want a nice machine that can run Linux? try the Asus EEE netbooks. they already have Expressgate which is an embedded Linux that has its own button and launches in 6 second from a cold start and gives you tons of apps and from what i've read the AMD APU based ones have been supported by ubuntu since 10.04 and i'm sure most of the other distros have support as well. I lug my all over the place and get 6 and a half hours on Win 7 and a little over 8 under Expressgate, i'd probably get longer but i like playing with all their multimedia stuff.

I've had customers get burned thinking Sony still meant quality so I've had several VIAO units and tearing into them i can tell you they are caca, no better than your average Dell consumer unit, just a little more shiny, a hell of a lot of bloatware, and a truly batshit price. Sony is going down for precisely that reason, they have let the quality go to shit while trying to still charge quality money. if you want a good laptop that will run Linux at a good price Asus, Acer, and HP business can all do that job and unlike Sony actually have decent build quality.

Such a Deserving Fate for SONY

[Anonymous Coward]

'nough said DanO. SONY lost the war years ago. Likely, they will be bought by a China dishwasker company soon.

OOOOooooooooo.

LoL

Record Losses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Record losses of $6.4 BILLION!? Jesus, Sony, why the fuck are you still even *making* records?? Poor hopeless bastards.

I wonder if they still distain their customers.

[rhalstead]

I won't feel sorry a bit for Sony although I do for their employees and those companies that need their products.