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Comment by sspiff | Hacker News Reader

I don't fully understand what brought Sony down. They have a strong synergy between their markets (content production and consumption, for instance), and their electronic products are still high quality, well designed pieces of consumer electronics, both on the engineering side as on the product design side.

They're a company that has tried weird, new kinds of devices, like head-mounted 3D displays, tablets and ultra-portables. Sure, their attempts at these things didn't create high-volume markets, but at least it shows to me that the company is trying hard to innovate, with strong, more traditional products to back it up.

I find it a bit saddening how Sony fails to sell enough of its products.

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You can innovate in the lab all you want but if no one is buying your product because it doesn't answer the right problems is it that innovative. I thought the AIBO robot was interesting but not thousands of dollars fabulous, you can get a proper, pedigreed dog for that price.

They have a nasty habit of bringing things to market to fast and then not properly supporting it. Then when the consumers walk away they blame everything else but themselves.

Or to give a slightly cheaper example: Sony Tablet S and P. Both were experiments,as in - tablets with a very unusual form factor, released to see if the market will accept them. And while the Tablet P was a failure, Tablet S sold quite well - and what Sony did? Abandoned it. The only available update to Android 4.0 leaves all users with slow system on an otherwise nice device, but worst of all - it has a locked bootloader,so you can't even put a custom rom of a newer version. A cool device released quickly, and just as quickly abandoned.

AIBO was a big missed opportunity. The unit cost was too high, and the software not advanced enough. But those things can't have been having a huge effect on their R&D budget. They could have kept the same mechanical design, but increased CPU/memory each year, with corresponding work on the AI for minimal pain, reducing the price and improving the utility each year. If that work had continued constantly, we would have some truly remarkable AI pets available by now, which would make the ultimate toy for young children that live in apartments. That same technology could then have been applied to home automation robots. Instead we have Roomba.

Like you, I thought AIBO was far ahead of its time. So far that I assumed Sony was using it to improve their AI and would release better products based on the feedback. Except, they never did. They had a product that everyone saw wasn't going to sell well and just killed it when exactly that happened.

I wonder if their business case to support just such an ongoing effort counted on a stronger reception in their domestic market--there is a strong cultural affinity in Japan for robots, and crowded conditions that make pet ownership more challenging. The time the AIBO was in the market was a continuation of the austerity driven lost decade(s), with GDP growth of a little over 1% annually.

On the other hand, as demonstrated through this thread, there is little tech that Sony hasn't seen capable of messing up.

> They have a strong synergy between their markets (content production and consumption, for instance),

In theory they could have a strong synergy, but as the article alludes to, they never really exploited the possibilities. Corporate infighting to maintain fiefdoms and current profits will quickly destroy any attempt to grow into new markets that require paradigm shifts.

Their stuff generally looks good, but the likes of Samsung managed to make product every bit as good (or better) and at better prices, generally.

Also some of us still have a bitter taste in our mouths from the various rootkits and hacker lawsuits, so wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. I'm under no illusion we're a serious market force though.

They're mostly competing in commodity markets - TV, stereo, Android phones, etc. And in those markets right now, the only thing people care about is price, availability and marketing. "how many inches TV can I get for $X?" "what high-end smartphone will my operator give me for free?". Sony have failed at those things. I'm in Bangkok right now, and the city is PLASTERED with Samsung adverts. For phones, smartTVs, everything. I also see Samsung or Apple phones in every hand. Sony has also failed at marketing.

While Japanese companies were working on products that will sell more of their motors or components, American companies were working on a virtual ecosystem.

There's absolutely no synergy between Sony's departments and that's also a massive problem.

Sony had more than one problem. The biggest problem is their brand name has suffered for years with lackluster and not very well-thought out products.

They're starting to turn it around but it may be too late - much like Nokia and HTC.

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