Sony no longer home of the Bravia as it plans TV biz spin-out to China’s TCL

Sony wants to stop making televisions. The Japanese giant on Tuesday announced it’s signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese consumer electronics outfit TCL to advance talks on the creation of a joint venture that will take over Sony’s television and audio businesses. TCL will own 51 percent of the new venture and …

[Piro]

How to destroy a respected brand, 101

See article title.

[simonlb]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

But most consumers won't be aware of the deal and will still just cough up for their next TV because, "Sony Bravia TV's are a quality product." It'll be a few years before people notice their new TV isn't as good as their old one and realise they've paid over the odds for something with just a branding label on it.

[lordminty]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

People seem quite happy to pay inflated prices for "something with just a branding label on it" when they are glorified Volkswagens, or Skodas.

See Audi and Porsche.

[NetMage]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

If you think a Porsche is a glorified VW, you’ve haven’t driven a Porsche in a hundred years.

[lordminty]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

I've driven a 911.

It's just an expensive, overpowered, Beetle. Which itself was a copy of a Tatra.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Driving a Porsche road-car is a horrible experience. A Porsche Chelsea Tractor is somewhat better.

[lordminty]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

I drove a 911 track car, on a track.

It still had the same binary handling as a Beetle or any other Beetle derived vehicle.

Porsches just seem to be a mid-life crisis car for over compensating angry small men.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Please, show some respect to the origins and heritage of the marque, Range Rovers are Chelsea tractors.

The Porsche is a Wankpanzer

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Except the Porsche Cayenne. That's a VW Tuareg

Oh and the Macan, that's an Audi Q5

And the Panamera, that's a bit of an exception and rather a let down for Bentley because they share the platform with Porsche and the Audi ETron.

But, y'know, you're almost right, some Porsche models aren't just glorified VWs, they just share trim, lighting, engines, gearboxes and drivetrain electronics...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac, JLR, Volvo and Lincoln have lived off this for decades.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

It’s unclear if the endpoints will be Song Branded.

Much has been said of Bravia Brand on the article.

Feels like Bravia may become a standalone TV Brand, much in the way Lenovo co-opted the power of the ThinkPad brand many years ago but eventually grew so Lenovo’s became a tier 1 brand.

That being said Samsung, LG, HiSense, TCL, Vizio (and other House brands) have made Sony a bit player like Panasonic, Sharp, JVC etc ….

All of the Global scale comments about TCL should be true about Sony.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Sharp is already a TCL brand.

[AIBailey]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

The last TV I bought was a Sony 55inch, back in 2017, and TBH it's crap. I guess their super high-end OLED screens are still good, but I'd assumed they'd been putting cheap components in there for years, and I certainly wouldn't consider it to be a respected brand these days.

My next purchase will probably be a LG. Or perhaps one of the current Chinese brands like TCL or Hisense. At least my expectations will be set.

[OpenSauce]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

I have a Sony 2021 OLED Google TV.

Been great so far - the screen is an LG panel.

From my experience, video processing such as upscaling 720P TV to HD/UHD better than many brands.

My TV got an Android update from 9 to 10 last year and that improved everything.

My concern would be even more data snooping once TCL in charge.

[Bugsy11]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

"My concern would be even more data snooping once TCL in charge."

# It won't be my concern because I won't be buying any more Sony TV's here-in.

[Just Enough]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Sony still get a lot of online hate because of the stupidity of the 2005 rootkit fiasco. (It was over twenty years ago people!)

But the fact is they make quality audio-visual hardware. I've been buying Sony TVs most of my life. My next TV was almost certainly going to be Sony. Now I'm not so sure.

This move is a big disappointment.

[Mage]

Re: quality audio-visual hardware

Not for years. Trading on past reputation. Maybe the professional products are good.

Philips Audio & TV was split and now just labels on two Asian companies. Now they really only do lighting and grooming. Like before 1928. Semiconductors spun off.

Sony was once a big innovator 1956 to maybe 2006.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Sony haven't made quality consumer televisions or audio gear since the late 90s, it's been in steady decline since then

Their last range of CRT trnitron TVs were plagued with quality issues (I was working at a service agent and repairing hundreds of them)

Their LCD stuff is, like so many other "manufacturers" using the same panels as *many* other brands and has been since their first versions, their image processing electronics has been awful, slow and laggy with poor image rendering.

The Playstation is pretty good, their studio stuff is too.

[Gene Cash]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

It wasn't just the rootkit... it was how Sony would never make accessories that weren't proprietary. Like cameras that needed Sony Memory Sticks. Like DAT tapes that had DRM issues. Like Vaio PCs that had things like the floppy select line inverted and other gratuitous changes so they needed their own tweaked version of Windows and Linux drivers.

I got tired of that game.

[Irongut]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

> But the fact is they make quality audio-visual hardware.

No, they don't. They get a Chinese factory to build a cheap TV around an LG screen.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

And this is just it. They're now competing purely on price with Korean and even Chinese alternatives that are no worse (and haven't been for years), and therefore they no longer have a USP other than the logo.

[NetMage]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

My last Sony TV was a very expensive rear projection model that had a known defect where the projection unit lost seal and oxygen corrupted the phosphors. I had it replaced and the same thing happened again. No more Sony TVs.

[Dan 55]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

I expect it'll work out as well for Sony as it did for Philips.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Philips is getting a cut from every TV sold with its name on it. It doesn't do any development. It just leases its name and IP (AmbiLight) to a Chinese manufacturer. They figured out what Sony has figured out recently almost two decades ago, namely that the electronics business is finished unless you have a unique selling point.

Sony has come to the conclusion that if you don't make your own panels you're basically void of any unique selling point. And they exited the panel business almost two decades ago so it took them a while to figure this out.

[Dan 55]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Why should I buy a Philips? What are they offering me above the rest? If I wanted to buy a Philips I could buy any no-name brand offering Android TV...

All they've managed to do is lose many customers to no-name brands and many who won't buy either the Philips or a no-name brand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Philips is a well-respected European brand and a household name. I do expect they insist on a quality product to protect their brand name. TPVision can't just fling Chinese junk with a Philips badge to the market.

As a USP they have AmbiLight which AFAIK no other TV manufacturer has. The patents should expire in a couple of years though.

[Sandtitz]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

"I do expect they insist on a quality product to protect their brand name."

I wouldn't. Techmoan reviewed a CD/Vinyl combo player couple weeks ago and it is hideous plastic garbage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Nah, TCL will survive.

[lordminty]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

TVs from JVC and Hitachi already come from Vestel.

Doesn't seem to be an issue for die hard Apple brand fans that everything comes from Foxxconn!

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

It depends on who runs the brand. In apple's case it's Apple. This isn't always the case. All too often the brand is bought up as a consumable to boost sales until poor service gets it tainted. Then its time to buy another.

[Mage]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

TCL are now better than Sony.

TCL have quite a few brands and maybe have always made Alcatel phones.

Sony now has little of interest other than the Playstation for years. They messed up on many technologies with stupid restrictions due to becoming a media company. Last Sony TV I had died in 3 months and insisted on encrypting entire HDD plugged in (only FTA). Unlike a €45 setbox which simply records TS files as-is on any FAT32 storage.

They crippled minidisc players, CD root "malware", proprietary memory cards, killed Linux on one of the Playstations.

[Irongut]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Sony gave up being a respected TV brand decades ago when they stopped making the screens. You may as well buy an LG, that's what you're getting.

I have friends that still insist on buying Sony because "they make better TVs" no matter how many times I tell them they are wasting their money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

Sony are still using cheap Pertinax PCBs where the Chinese are using mostly FR-4, which is much more durable and reliable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How to destroy a respected brand, 101

There seems to be a view amongst many that "made in China" is a label for poor quality. There was a time (1950's and 60's) when "made in Japan" held that distinction.

China's manufacturing sectors have done, and continue to do, what Japan's did: take ideas (especially from the West) and use their national attributes to improve on them. Japan did it for the motor industry and consumer electronics and there's no reason to assume China won't continue that trend. Of course, the ability to provide quality products doesn't mean all are - all the label tells you is where it's made and there's still plenty of tat with "made in China" labels.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

I'm glad I bought my Sony balanced headphones a couple years ago before they dropped the midrange model and only sold the $1000+ top tier model. Although I'm part of a very small market, there are still some of us who insist we can hear the difference between analogue and digital, and that digital tends to suck rather heinously unless it's a minimum of 192/24 sampling.

Sony used to be my go-to for monitors, but Samsung took over that role for a lot of years once Sony decided to try to "leverage" their reputation to jack up their prices and "improve profitability" despite the fact that for the past decade plus, you really haven't been able to tell much difference between top-tier monitors from any of the major display panel manufacturers - production quality is just that good nowadays, so Sony and Samsung don't really have much benefit to their particular branding any more like they did in the past, especially back in the analogue monitor days.

Nowadays I am running an ASUS monitor. Technically the blacks were darker on my previous Samsung monitor, but it isn't enough of a difference to have justified the 45% price increase the Samsung would have cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a tank of liquid nitrogen you can dip your head into, I believe it lowers the noise floor considerably and widens the sound stage whilst simultaneously giving extra crispness and solidity

[David 132]

Ah, but is the liquid nitrogen organic, and is the tank it’s in hewn from a rare hardwood, with the woodgrains aligned all in the same direction, using low-oxygen gold screws to hold it together?

If not, then you are no audiophile, and I say “good day” to you, sir.

[BartyFartsLast]

Pfft, my liquid nitrogen tank is actually aligned with the local ley lines as well as being coated in wax from bees who were only allowed nectar from organic fields. The screws are played in only the finest crystalline unobtanium and the earth connection is made with ballast from the Dalai Llama's personal composting toilet

[Fruit and Nutcase]

I think twice about doing that. You run the risk of your skin looking pasty and taking on an orange hue and wanting to annex Greenland. Liquid nitrogen is to be handled with care

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

I'd suggest inserting a 1KV amplifier up your ass while plugged in for "extra bass."

[Anonymous Coward]

"digital tends to suck rather heinously unless it's a minimum of 192/24 sampling."

Pfft... You think you're an audiophile and you say that? 320kbps MP3 existed even in the original Napster days.

If you wanted us to believe your credentials you should have said Lossless FLAC. Or a good old .wav

[Fruit and Nutcase]

MP3

Here's an interesting post from @Peter Galbavy from a few years back...

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2017/05/16/mp3_dies_nobody_noticed/#c_3179620

[MiguelC]

192/24 sampling means 192kHz/24-bit, not 192kbps (that's the compression bit rate)

MP3s usually use 44.1 kHz or 48KHz/16-bit sampling rates

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

MP3's are lossy compression. I'm talking about the pure, uncompressed audio stream. And if you think an 320kbps MP3 sounds as good as 192/24 or better FLAC, then I suggest you lay off the crack because it's really rotting your brain...

[PCScreenOnly]

Quality?

My TV is Sony and yes, it's screen is really good. However some of the other components are shit

Some apps removed themselves as the processor is so shit !

It continuously has problems with non sony soundbases (known issue, especially on optical)

[OpenSauce]

Re: Quality?

A friend has a 10 year old Sony Android TV that has a slow CPU and not enough storage to update O/S.

It too lost support for BBC iPlayer due to performance - used that for Wimbledon 4K.

Bizarrely (start conspiracies now), if you watched Wimbledon on broadcast TV and clicked red button (or green WHY), you could get the 4K stream, all working fine.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Quality?

Got a 15-year old Philips – when they were still made by Philips – here and it hasn't had "updates" for well over a decade but it still works fine. The embedded Opera is still able to run most of the online media centres that we're interested in, which is frankly amazing in comparison with other equipment from the time and for the rest, there's a RPi4 running Kodi.

I was thinking of a Sony as a replacement, when time comes, but they don't do the right size any more.

[Irongut]

Re: Quality?

Unless it is 20+ years old that screen, the only good part according to your post, was not made by Sony.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Quality?

Some apps removed themselves as the processor is so shit

Sony is, at least, not alone in this – it's just how "smart" TVs are. A few years after you've bought one, support ends and the "smart" features get uninstalled or just stop working.

[adfh]

I wonder if this means...

... that their smart TV features will stop sucking? They've tended to neuter their embedded Android, and give it bugger all storage, and an underpowered SoC

[Paul Crawford]

Re: I wonder if this means...

No.

[ske1fr]

Re: I wonder if this means...

Well...we got sick of our Panasonic needing rebooting almost every time we tried to watch anything, and the glacial response to the remote, and replaced it with a Sony just recently. Responsiveness is back to something we can live with. So they might be a shadow of their former selves in TVs but this one is at least plausible. And I'm no longer getting blamed for the crap Panny, so that's a win.

[wolfetone]

20/30 years ago Sony meant something. They produced good quality products. I remember when I was younger my dad bought my sister her own games console and would only buy the PlayStation because he said Sony were a good make. He'd never heard of Nintendo or Sega but knew Sony were good. And they were. We still had an old Sony TV upstairs where it had a rotary dial on the front of it with actual channel frequency numbers. Not 1, 2, 3 etc but 34, 35, 36. My Dad had that TV from when he was single in the early 80s and it was second hand then. Finally skipped in 2005 not because it was broken but because, well, time marched on.

But their products, really, are shit. They're expensive for what they are, and they know themselves that the likes of TCL who were a no-name brand 20 years ago have taken them over. Not because they're cheap (they're cheaper obvs) but the product they make for less money is equivalent or better than what Sony charge through the nose for.

Like I bought a BluRay player 2 years ago now, a Sony one, for £120. It didn't get used all the time, but after 18 months it promptly shit itself. NFG. I binned it and dusted off my old PS3 which is 15 years old, and still works. To me, that shows how far down Sony have gone.

As for TCL and other Chinese AV stuff, you only have to have a look around at the Digital Audio Player scene to see how good the audio stuff China is making now is. All playing FLAC, all playing high definition audio, in a form factor that works. You can't help looking at them and wondering if a western company did the same you'd be looking at £1,000 for something that wasn't quite as good.

[lordminty]

"20/30 years ago Sony meant"

Rootkits!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "20/30 years ago Sony meant"

Someone above said we should get over that now so do as you're told.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "20/30 years ago Sony meant"

Produce a good products and a brand can get a good reputation. Then produce one bad one and the loyal customers who'd bought one go elsewhere and, if they like what they find, become loyal customers there instead. Even if the original brand continues to produce good products its ex-customers aren't going to go back because they've no need to. The best they can hope for is to pick up a new following.

But that's just with a quality issue. The rootkit episode was a gross breach of trust. Even people like myself who'd never bought a Sony product heard of it. Trust is the hardest thing to rebuild once it's lost; "If they did it once they might do it again. You can't trust them." That's why the rootkit issue will stick to them as long as people remember it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "20/30 years ago Sony meant"

It was a joke people, unfortunately AC's can't use icons. And I'm AC for legal reasons.

[lordminty]

Re: "20/30 years ago Sony meant"

Having had to disinfect machines with Sony's rootkit, I refuse "to get over it"!

I vowed never to touch another Sony product.

And I haven't since.

Perhaps buyers like me are why the find themselves where they are? Just a thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "20/30 years ago Sony meant"

Eh, you put Windoze on your computer, you've already consented to any and all rootkits.

It's infected out of the box.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese digital audio players are still mostly junk. I bought a CAPPSU player which keeps skipping during playback. No software update anywhere to be found even though the menu supports updating the firmware.

I my opinion the golden standard is European / U.S. designed stuff manufactured in China to keep it affordable. Like Cambridge Audio and NAD are doing at the moment.

I prefer to stay clear from Chinese manufacturers. Although I have to admit their quality is improving. I recently bought a SILVERCREST eReader for $60 which works without issues. But it's a mixed bag.

[elsergiovolador]

Exit

Looks like shareholders now the party is over and it's time to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour.

One last champagne.

[mark l 2]

My current TV is approaching its 14 birthday and gets used daily so i have to be prepared that is probably going to need replacing soon. But which brands actually make their own TVs in 2025, and aren't just a Vestel or TCL set with a different sticker stuck on the front?

[Irongut]

Samsung, LG and the Chinese. That's it.

[Dave559]

14 year old TV

It's obviously not remotely the same from a technology perspective, but my parents had their main (and for most of that time, only) TV (wooden-framed and on wheels and all) from about the mid-1970s to probably around the early 2000s or so, and it worked perfectly fine for all that time.

That there is now an expectation that LCD TVs might not last anywhere near as long as that is a little bit depressing, really.

[lordminty]

Vestel?

I'm surprised they didn't just offload production to the global Turkish TV manufacturer Vestel, like Toshiba, JVC, Hitachi, Bush, Goodmans and loads of budget badge engineered brands have.

Or sold it off entirely to JIP (Japan Industrial Parners) like they did with the Vaio PC business.

[williamyf]

You do the mergers you can, not the mergers you want.

¿Remember AMD? They wanted to merge with nVIDIA. Jensen said "Sure, but I become CEO of both companies". Hector said no, so AMD turned to ATi.

¿Remembar Siemes Telecom? They wanted to merge with Motorola Telcom and that made A LOT of sense (very little technological overlap, very little geographical overlap), but after MOUs were Signed, Motorola got cold feet because of allegations of corruption in the broader Siemens (telco was exhonerated in the end), so the Merger happened with Nokia (lots of technological overlap, lots of geographical overlap).

Plenty other examples.In the end, you do the mergers you can, not the ones you want.

[Mozzie]

Not sure why the dissing of TCL

I worked as a technician in commercial AV a good few years ago and was the misery of my colleagues lives due to my expectations of perfection with gear. We used everything from PVMs through to Barco CRT projectors, rear projection to plasma and I moved on just as LCD was becoming a domestic thing. CRT geometry, projection keystoning, definition ranges, de-artifcating - I seemed to pick up on every last niggle the rest were oblivious to.

This of course made me a bigger pain in the arse at home. I've never done the neuron-calibrated-pulsar-radiation-shielded-gravitational-optic-compensation audiophile kind of thing with £400/metre cable but would spend 3 hours in Curry's comparing all the picture qualities followed by an afternoon in Richer Sounds with a courtesy coffee to procrastinate over what seemed like life and death choices for entertainment provision over the next few years.

Sony had my support right up until the WEGA line switched to LCD; from there on it was downhill and I've not seen a Bravia model compare to other brands with picture definition since. Where Sony did seem to do markedly better is picture processing - removing noise & artifacts, upscaling and natural depth. Especially on much more recent LG and Samsung OLED displays, the larger the worse, the picture starts to feel like an artificial 3D and if I'm watching a movie, at least to me, I feel like I'm more in the studio with it being filmed than experiencing the end result the movie production wants me to see.

Last year I was in a shopping centre in South America. There were three electrical retailers in a row with a Sony Store in the middle. It was not difficult to make quick comparisons between all the TVs lined up on display; Sony unfortunately looking a little bit dull, grey and lifeless. I thought this may have just been how Sony Store had left their settings but the same models in the other two stores looked equally 'flat'. It was almost like going back to the rear projection vs CRT days.

Then there were several TCLs stuck between the Samsung and LG sections in the other two shops. The displays were vibrant, no over-harsh contrast, stunning colour depth with proper black and a good $300.00 cheaper than the other two marks. Samsung looked good, sure, but so good on some scenes it was like elements of the picture were diamond cut out of glass. The LG's in my opinion were preferable but again so much picture-processed clarity on the larger screens that the artificial 3D effect started to creep in, almost nauseating.

Where TCL did fall down was the built in sound. It was crap. Not tinny, not distorted, not vibrating but more like the audio was coming from the far side of the room and flat.

If Sony can implement some decent audio design into the TCLs in my opinion they're on to a winner. Personally I would still go for an LG if the money was there because I have a stronger preference for WebOS than Android TV and I'm not too keen on screens over 50" anyway. But if I was still living in Latin America with the difference in pricing and for the sake of a great picture I'd be more than happy with a TCL and at some stage get a cheap soundbar if it was worth it.

[ChrisC]

Re: Not sure why the dissing of TCL

TCL + soundbar is our current setup, and given the combined price is still comfortably lower than the price of just an equivalent spec TV from one of the more obvious brand names (which, based on prior experience with other TVs from such brands, would *still* need the soundbar anyway), it wasn't a difficult choice to shortlist TCL, and having then compared some of their sets side by side with other brands, the only two questions in my mind were firstly "why would anyone spend that much more just to get a different name printed on the bezel of a screen that's delivering the same image quality?" and secondly "what's the expected delivery time for *that* TCL model?"...

And whilst they might not be *as well* known as the likes of Sony et al, they (and HiSense et al) have been gaining some level of awareness in the UK at least via their sports sponsorships - a random person on the street might not be immediately aware of *what* these brands offer, but they're now increasingly likely to at least be aware that the brands exist in the first place.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Not sure why the dissing of TCL

Here's my reason. I bought a Phillips TV not realising it had been TCLed. It was supposed to not be smart (a plus) but had a network connection through which it was supposed to connect to the Freeview site rather like the Freeview box. It didn't and hasn't since. The alleged customer service line wasn't. As far as I'm concerned they're just another company that buys up brands to fool customers into buying a mediocre product thinking they'll get the quality of product and service the brands were originally known for. If TCL makes it I now won't buy it.

[VicMortimer]

Re: Not sure why the dissing of TCL

Has nobody learned that you DO NOT connect a TV to your network?

Having the network connection not function is a feature, not a bug.

[Vikingforties]

CERN, hold my beer.

I held onto my (Sony) CRT telly for years into the flat panel age, if only for the fact I could say that we owned a domestic particle accelerator in the corner of the room.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: CERN, hold my beer.

The Sony Trinitron TV that I bought for my parents was still working fine after 25 years - only gave it to a charity shop when the house was getting cleared - the TV needed 2 people to move it, and also space wise, the footprint was too big to be practical in a smaller room, so it had to go

[Alan_P]

Akio Morita

I worked at Sony from 1986-2011 as a repair tech, instructor and Product Manager. I don’t think Sony recovered from the death of Akio Morita, at least on the consumer product side. That and their fixation with owning physical media, tape, disk, Memory Stick whatever, all with pretty severe DRM.

I had a few of the Sony Digital Walkman products, all sounded pretty good, but loading up an album’s worth of songs on a 64Mb Stick was painful. Love it or hate it, the iPod and iTunes got it right.

Ironically, one of the biggest inspirations for Steve Jobs was Sony with their manufacturing and product design philosophies.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Akio Morita

Back in those days Sony manufactured a lot for Apple, power supplies, drives (apple super drives and even some of the SCSI hard disks were Sony) monitors and even system boards if I remember correctly.

[Alan_P]

Re: Akio Morita

Yes indeed.

[VicMortimer]

Re: Akio Morita

The MiniDisc was the end of Sony for me. Copy protection unless you pay for the "pro" crap? No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming holdout

Sony will eventually only produce PlayStation hardware on which they're making a monopolist-like profit. Their electronics business has been going downhill for the last two decades, with higher prices at lower quality.

Then there's the entertainment business (films and music) which is spotty at best. Box office receipts have been falling for years and the quality of movies has deteriorated to mostly awful reboots with here and there a blockbuster (which isn't enough to prop up all the losses they made on the bombs).

[Neoc]

Here's a thought: how about actually selling a *TV* instead of a wanna-be PC? I don't need it to stream, or have voice commands, or AI, orwhatever fad surfaces next week. I want a display I can optimise for Movies or TV shows. With a decent set of plugs at the back, including some of the older ones (yes, I still have a PSONE) so I can connect my amplifier, my gaming consoles (although I generally run them through the amplifier), and my HTPC (which, some to thnk, again runs through my amplifier). OK, so just my amplifier then.

Honestly, if it weren't for the fact I can't find a large enough monitor at a decent price, I'd buy a PC monitor instead of a TV when time comes to replace my current one.

[DrewPH]

The only Sony products I've bought in the last 10+ years have been their noise-cancelling headphones (as in big cans not stupid little buds), and these have been excellent. I wonder how long it will take for that range to be enshittified.

I have a 65" 4K TCL TV which already had to be replaced under warranty 2 months after purchase due to massive blue lines appearing on the panel. Won't be buying TCL again that's for sure. Or Sony, now.

[legless82]

I have 2 Sony TVs in the house

One is a 40" W-series Bravia that I bought 18 years ago, and it still continues to do sterling daily service as my kitchen TV with a Roku stick plugged into it.

The other is a 2021 55" Bravia Android TV that, to be fair, seems to be a decent TV with good performance and a great picture. It's not given me any issues.

However, that TV was a warranty replacement for a 2016 55" Bravia Android TV, which at the time I bought it was at the top of Sony's LCD range. It was an appalling piece of crap though - firstly, the picture didn't seem significantly different to its then 8 year old sibling and they appear to have fitted it with a SoC from a pocket calculator, but it was the reliability that did for it. 3 power board replacements in the first 4 years, and I almost cried with joy when the panel developed a stripe across it in the last year of warranty cover. Sony deemed a repair to be uneconomic so they replaced it with the then-equivalent model in the range. The difference was night and day.

[andyhilton]

We are now PlayStation

So basically Sony is now just PlayStation and the Honda EV car thing that will go nowhere.