Where Did Sony and Panasonic Go Wrong?

[Hey Man]

I remember in the 80's and 90's - people would swear by electronics made by Sony and Panasonic and they would not buy anything else. It was almost a status symbol - especially if you were someone with one of the early yellow Sony Walkman's.

www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Sony-Sports-Walkman-4.jpg

Supposedly if you were buying Sony or Panasonic, you were buying the best - be it TV's, stereo, etc. People didn't buy Samsung for status purposes or top quality, they bought Samsung because that is what they could afford.

So where did Sony and Panasonic fuck up - now that Samsung has become king of electronics? Were Sony and Panasonic just putting their name on crap and the quality went to shit?

Did anyone here buy Sony/Panasonic religiously and notice a huge decline in quality?

[B5Erik]

I worked for Circuit City in the mid 90's, and Sony TV's were crap at the time.

They were solid, had good color and contrast, and good sound. It was the sharpness, though that absolutely sucked. Their picture was SOFT. You had to turn the sharpness up about 90% before the picture looked good. Comparitively speaking, most other brands looked the same, sharpness wise, at about 50%. I sold a shitload of Sanyo TV's back then because the Sanyo's had better picture quality and lasted just as long. And they cost about 30% less.

I think it was around that time that Sony lost a lot of U.S. market share. The funny thing is that I heard from someone in the know (someone who worked at Sony in their marketing department) who said that it was the wife of Sony's Chairman who liked the soft picture. Apparently, according to the marketing guy who recognized the sharpness shortcomings with Sony's sets, she didn't like sharp pictures - she thought they were too harsh, so the Chairman insisted that they soften the picture to smooth it out. That's the story related to me, and it's really the only thing that makes sense since Sony's TV's at the time were horribly outclassed in overall picture quality by at least half of the TV manufacturers at the time. They knew that their picture was softer, but they didn't change it until the early 2000's. Their reputation as the best was shot.

Buh-bye marketshare!

[B5Erik]

What's really sad is that Sony's MP3 Walkman is really good. I bought one about 6 years ago and it is fantastic. They've got good products again, but other brands took their place about 15 years ago. Apple owns the MP3/iPod market, and Samsung owns the TV market.

[Deleted]

When do you see Sony electronics advertised anywhere these days except for Playstation? Other brands run rings around them when it comes to marketing their products.