“The company sold its core home audiovisual business to Sharp and U.S.-based Voxx International and its earphones and headphones business to an investment fund, both in September. A joint venture between Sharp and Voxx is expected to continue using the Onkyo brand”
The design of the manuals, including the fonts and screenshots were almost identical. The back and front of the units were almost identical. I bet even the guts were identical!
Here is the pioneer unit: https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/manuals/docs/SN29403616...
Here is the Onkyo unit: https://www.onkyousa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/TX-SR494...
But actually I think that had already happened, and that we are just observing now the formal recognition of that fact.
Eventually, consumers catch on:
> but now they just license their name out to be stamped on cheap crappy laptops
Doesn't work in which part of the way it does work in the West?
Is the brand part of the assets and impossible to be sold - as a brand - locally or globally as part of the liquidation with this Onkyo bankruptcy in Japan?
I’m not so sure. The mainstream market (by that I mean excluding expensive “high-end” brands like NAD) can’t support a lot of independently designed products. In the AVR mainstream market there’s currently Denon/Marantz, Onkyo/Pioneer, Sony, and Yamaha (did I miss any?). There’s bound to occur more consolidation if the market keeps shrinking. The brands may continue to exist, but sharing the internals with other brands.
But multi-channel sound is sewn up - to enter that market you have to ask permission from companies like dolby. Same with video.
Then you get into the exotica such as Trinnov, Storm, etc.
There is a special place in hell for brand destroyers: it's bad enough when the original company does it, but to have a licensee skate on nostalgic happiness only to slam you with their blade... Consumers deserve better.