"Last month, BP Nikkei Consulting in Tokyo released a survey showing that Sony dropped to Japan's eighth-most admired brand, from the top position last year. The number of consumers saying that Sony showed "conspicuous individuality" dropped to about 25 percent, from about 40 percent the year before, BP Nikkei said."

Even the Japanese don't hold Sony in the same reverence as they used to. It'll be really interesting to see how Japan greets the PS3 in November.

I wonder where Nintendo sits in the list of Japan's most admired brands? I wonder how much that will have gone up a year from now?

Sony. Rootkits. Screw em. End of story.

Someone else needs to realize how many of those 100 million PS2s sold were re-sales due to worn out hardware (disk boot failure's abound). While I only owned one PS2 (actually, I gave my bulky original to my bro for his b-day when I was dirtpo, but it's still going strong), I know friends who went through three or four. If Sony could take a que from Nintendo, who, after the NES made hardware that would outlast the roaches, they may be able to reclaim that buyer consumer confidence.

jp007,
I agree. What is Sony? DRM Rootkits.

If I buy some data from you, it's my data. I’ll respect your wishes if you ask me not to copy it, but when you try force it only encourages me to pirate it to avoid the traps you build in. You have a monopoly on the "intellectual property" you're selling me. I can’t get the specific movie or video game from one of your competitors. So if you want to be dicks about it and break my machines to make sure I don't copy it or play it on some other company's device, I'll have no moral qualms with getting a pirated copy with your bullshit DRM removed. Then I’ll laugh as you fail by pissing off all the honest, paying customers.

I don’t care what the law says about it… when I buy a CD, DVD or video game, I don't consider it an act of renting the content from the company with a contract that says I can only use it certain ways or on certain machines, I'm buying the damn thing.

GLitch, i think the same BS applies to the 360 as well. MS has stated in the past that gamers are "not allowed" to open it up and tinker with it. Voiding the warranty is one thing, but banning someone form tinkering with something they paid for? Strange times indeed...

Y'know the PS3 could every now and then zap you with 1000 volts of electricity and it would still sell like gangbusters. I can't believe people who say "OMG 600 buckz it iz gona fale" Based on? People loved the PS1 and the PS2 so they are sure they are going to love the PS3- and fork over half a grand for it. Brand loyalty is EVERYTHING and to these past generations of kids, Sony is what Nintedno was to my generation. So while they might not be the powerhouse brand they once were in everything else, they definitly have a definitive presence when it comes to console gaming.

Canadian Geese.

Good quote. However, this brand decline actually started in Japan. The Japanese, while very loyal to Japan-based companies, are also very quality-savvy. If you start messing around with their products they notice, and fast. In North
America, we tend to be much more tolerable of bad product quality. This is one of the reasons the Big 3 automakers are only now feeling the pinch that they should have 10 years ago.

The PS2 wasn't the only Sony product to start lagging behind the competition in terms of build quality. No one here is going to argue the strengths of the PS2's games library, but I bought 3 of the damn things. The only reason I did was that I'd invested so much money in games for it.
There T.V.'s have been getting kicked around by Matsushita (Panasonic) and most home theater electronics have been selling at or near cost for the last few years.

Sony has become the electronics equivalent of GM. They have their fingers in way too many pies and are falling behind on all. This is one of the reasons that the PS3 is their one ray of hope right now. Should it sell well enough to establish Blu-Ray it will affect all of their divisions positively. This, however, will only happen if people buy Blu-Ray movies as well. Remember, the PSP sold well but UMD movies did not
and they are a dying breed now.

ir Stringer has said in the past (specifically 60 Minutes) that "You can beat us over the head with an iPod as much as you like, but apple only has twenty five products. We have hundreds."

I would have liked to see that interview take place now, with the Sony's flagship PS3 losing steam and hype at a tremendous rate.

P.S. Hear hear, glitchcog

Glitch Cog:

While I agree it's wrong to fuck your machine up, I don't agree with you in the fact that "you buy the damn thing". You don't own the content. I do not think you are renting it either, as you have to simply pay once for it. You are simply buying *permission* to watch it where you want, whenever you want. You are buying a 20 buck disc (of content that cost millions to make), not the content. You can't profit from it because you didn't create it, and it wouldn't be fair to pay someone that didn't make it (the pirate) half the price because the credit isn't going where it should be going.

The worst thing is that this has nothing to do with the PlayStation brand. Games don't fuck up the consoles. All the "DRM fiasco" is only for the Sony Music division, but some Joystiq readers love to relate it to PlayStation. How about relating crappy software with anything Microsoft, like Xbox? Exactly. Totally different things.

Did anyone notice the picture representing Sony's yearly games sales in the pie chart? It's an image of an Xbox360 display. Funny.

LaughingMan - The problem with your argument is that history has shown that the market leader from one generation does not automatically win the next round, even if they won the last round by a mile. Who would have ever thought that Nintendo would fall so far behind after the tremendous success of the NES and SNES? Nobody.

The PS3 will most definitely lose some of it's market share because of the high price of the hardware. I doubt the PS3 will be completely usurped by the 360 and Wii, but Sony won't be the market leader that they were this generation.

If anything, all three consoles will be on more equal footing. I thinking the 360 will dominate Europe and the US markets, with the Wii and PS3 pulling in respectable numbers but not selling much software outside of the first party stuff. While in Japan, the PS3 and Wii will be the leaders, with close to zero 360 support.

Back in the PSX era, I would have said that anything branded Sony is a high quality product.

Today, I think that Sony makes very few quality products. They make some fantastic televisions and cameras, but their car audio, home audio, DVD/media players, game console hardware, laptops, desktops, and proprietary formats are all junk in my opinion. They perform poorly and do not last as long as their competition, which is sometimes cheaper!

Sony doesn't adhere to standards; they try to make them with their proprietary hardware. It's like what Microsoft has done with Windows and Internet Explorer. Unfortunately for Sony, they have viable competition with feasible alternatives.

If it wasn't for their exclusive games, Sony wouldn't see another dime from me.

LaughingMan,

Clearly you have no sense of history.

May I present a few names for you?

Atari
Voodoo(3DFX)
Sega
AT&T
Ford
NBC (Especially Thursday night)
Nintendo
....Sony

These are all companies that thought they were untouchable. All of them have been caught and surpassed. Some are out of business. Others have been bought. Others are getting there. Only one of those names is making a come back......and it's not Sony.

You simply cannot rely on past laurals to carry you through the next generations. Regulars help, but they will not save you.

Sony has got a growing problem. The world has changed a lot and a lot of countries that didn't use to produce electronics are doing so now. What they are making may not the the highest quality, but they are the lowest cost. This tends to lower the price people are willing to pay for their electronics. Sony's been in the business of making high cost, high quality products for some time now, however with the changes lately the costs seem too high and the quality too low. Also, it's one thing to release a costly product. It's something completely different to tell me that it should have cost more and that I'm going to buy it anyway just because I've loved their products in the past. Sony's PR department needs a major overhaul.

Great post Derbeste!

SONY's brand in Japan is being hurt by not only their diminished quality, consistent format failure, a game and media device that did neither well, and the overpriced, jack-of-all master-of-none PS3, but also by the fact that their CEO is named Howard Stringer.

I think just having a non-Japanese CEO has dimished SONY's image in Japan.

Ok, you need a through analysis over this? just cut the PS3 price down to $300 (one version) hold bluray for a while until its mainstream or place it as a buy later peripheral, ditch the funny "motion" controller and get the rumbling back, thats it!

Oh and make sure FFXIII and MGS4 are release titles. Instant fanbase baby!

'A Merril Lynch analyst said, "What is Sony? We don't even know anymore. Consumers used to pay more because the brand meant something special."'

But if consumers want something 'special' then they have to PAY MORE for what they get. But they don't want to PAY MORE, so they b***h until the 'special' features are cut and the price goes down.
*cough*PLAYSTATION3*cough*

Azrael;

A couple of points to respond to your comment.

First of all; this post regards Sony as a whole, not just PS3.

Second; if Sony removed Blu-Ray support (even temporarily) you can guarantee that they will lose the format war and HD-DVD (or none) will rule.

Your ideas for saving the PS3 are not necessary. Sony doesn't care if they sell 100 million over its life-span. It doesn't need to. They need to sell out at launch and at least keep pace with Microsoft. They need this so that people will have Blu-Ray in their homes. If each of the people that buy the PS3 that also own HDTV's buy 1 Blu-Ray movie they can win and make sure it is THE format. That's what they care about right now. Sony desparately needs the licensing fees that are associated with owning the dominant movie format. They can license the media & the technology for the players. This will drive sales in their Home Electronics, Movies and Media divisions.

If Sony dropped the price to $300, as you say, they will lose more than $400 per console (based on reports).

I do agree, however, with ditching the motion control. In fact, they should stop trying to compete with Nintendo at all. The pricing alone puts them in different classes of systems. Even Microsoft saw that and effectively started pushing the Wii. By declaring yourself as the competitor of a company with a great corporate image you set yourself up to look like the bad guy. This they accomplished by adding the motion tech, even if it is a totally different type.

I seriously don't get the fanatical devotion to Sony demonstrated by so many. What memorable first-party franchises do they create? All major franchises on their systems can be moved to other systems by the third parties creating them.

On the other hand, with Nintendo.. I completely understand the devotion. They're an actual gaming company.

I have a way that Sony can gain back some brownie points - there's pretty much no chance of my idea happening, but it would work for me.

If Sony could work out a deal with it's distributors so that people can purchase the PS3 via layaway, i think that would do wonders. I would do that in a second! There's just something about spending that much money at one time that shivers me timbers.

"I seriously don't get the fanatical devotion to Sony demonstrated by so many."

I think you'll find the fanatical devotion is far more evident in certain other gaming companies customers.

Sony has a problem as far as the chattering classes of the internet go, but so many of them seem to want to have a problem with Sony, far beyond what seems like rational behaviour in many cases.

11. LaughingMan - The problem with your argument is that history has shown that the market leader from one generation does not automatically win the next round, even if they won the last round by a mile. Who would have ever thought that Nintendo would fall so far behind after the tremendous success of the NES and SNES? Nobody.

That's true. But, man, it's just something inside that tells me no matter how much the system costs, what the games look like, Sony is going to be on top yet again. People are just going to blindly assume that the PS3 is going to be great. (and hey to be fair, it might well be) I mean look at the 360 sales figures, hardly "blazin hot" I think most people are waiting for the PS3 (my opinion- not fact)

I'm telling you this time next year? No matter how many great games and ideas and billion other things MS puts into 360, the PS3 will destroy it with nothing but Killzone 2 and a racing game. Just this feeling of inevitabilty and pessimism. And everyone who says I'm nuts and have no sense of history because crazy bread was huge once(???).......I think you'll all be very shocked that something so mediocre (maybe) can sell so well.

Derbeste I agree with your post except for one thing, replace Ford with GM.

GM is the world's largest automaker and they're getting ready to get passed in that area. Also, Ford has a bit of trouble but I think they'll pull through. GM is an unknown and looks to be a sinking ship from latest reports.

That and I'm also a Ford fan but who knows?

Sony has long engineered what THEY think people want vs what people ACTUALLY want. This is evident across their entire line and continues to this day. Was anyone really screaming for Blu-Ray or was it Sony telling us that we need Blu-Ray?

This strategy can only take you so far, and it's sheer momentum carrying them, and well, televisions and playstations. If the playstation were to falter, Sony would be in a world of hurt.

R-deezy- There is layaway- its called preordering.
Or simply start a savings account specifically for the ps3 right now. At least earn the interest for yourself and dont give it to some corporations.

boots,

Please note that this story is about the Sony brand, not the Playstation. And I know you're not really "buying" the content to use as you wish, but I don't think you understand what DRM is capable of. That "permission" they give you to watch it "where you want, whenever you want" is not going to be around much longer if Sony gets their way. DRM is about controlling how you consume their media. If they decide it's time for you to pay them again for an upgrade, you'll have to. Or that your media is locked onto your specific devices, no more taking a film over to a friend's. It's on the horizon, and Sony's leading the way.

Also, the Playstation DRM isn't far behind. Why do you think the rumors about the games being un-rentable were so believable? You don't think they've got accountants trying to figure out if the hit in consumer anger over it would be more or less than the profit they'd make from people buying more games? You don't think the PS3 BlueRay drive that they just had to put in there cost-be-damned isn't loaded with nasty DRMs?

I have to agree with LaughingMan in regards to consumers blindly assuming it is good/great/superior to other offerings. But there are also a lot more tech savvy consumers out there (a lot has changed since the 2000 release of the PS2). Sure people will buy it. They always do. But will they also buy the media that Sony so desperately needs you to buy? Probably not. Games? Sure they will it plays games after all. But so does the PSP and we know how "great" UMD movies sold. All it takes it ONE slip (Blu-ray manufacturing not up to par, further delays, anything) to cast further doubt in Sony, not only as a console manufacturer, but the company as a whole. At E3, we saw/read/watched the innovation from Nintendo and yes, Microsoft too. From the Wii to Live Anywhere, these companies showed who their consoles cater to...Gamers. Sony showed they could copy great aspects of their competition's products. Hell they even copy ideas from their own games; I am talking about the sequence attacks of God of War and the same thing in Heavenly Sword. MGS4 looks great, but show me in-game. Play the freaking thing and show me what it looks like. Don't run some pretty movie on a PC emulating your hardware. 6 months to release and you still don't have anything but developer hardware? Interesting.

in all fairness, Sony isn't the only company that has DRM issues on the brain. Microsoft was just as integral in the development of HDCP/ AACS as was Sony, if not more so. Don't forget, Vista is still built around the HDCP rules. Sony just thought they could get away with the rootkits without anyone crying wolf. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

I do, however, agree that Sony has begun to suffer from a severe image problem. if the masses actually become informed about the trojan horse nature of the PS3, I think it'll really hurt the console. people don't like being used-- and effectively, that's what Sony are going for. they want to create an install base for a product we may not be interested in buying.

but the bigger issue I have is with 'game journalists.' if these guys actually asked the right questions, or ANY questions, really, maybe the public would have a clearer picture of ALL the consoles, PS3 Wii AND the 360, and the race would be fair. case in point, when Moore and Harrison did the just-post-E306 interviews with different media outlets (GamePro, EGM, Joystiq, IGN), they were permitted to basically monologue for a few pages with gracious thanks for the scoop. Moore answered a _couple_ of questions, but Harrison got a soapbox to tout his console from and _no one_ asked him anything tough, like "What about ICT? Where is Killzone? Where is Killing Game? Incog says they only knew about the controller for ten days, what is the truth behind the shake? why didn't you guys show the online functionality at all? why should we as consumers believe you again this generation on the stuff you didn't specifically demonstrate when you promised so much last time and didn't deliver? Why didn't you guys announce GTA4 at your press conference, and take the wind from Microsoft's sails?"

Moore should've got the same sort of things, too. and none of these journalists actually asked any pointed questions of ANYONE. it's ridiculous. they should get new job titles. maybe something like "raging gaming syncophants."

the two best pieces of journalism from E3 happened to come from G4 (must've been accidentally.) Keighley interviewing Carmack somehow turned into Carmack dishing on the PS3 architecture (when Carmack began to rant, Keighley looked like he was going to lay an egg from worry about someone _expressing an opinion on air on G4_, it was fantastic), and Morgan Webb's derisive 'you mean the grass wasn't 3d before' comment about Madden O7 summed up the journalism aspect of E3 for me.

lastly, Jedi Power Battles (DC) for XBLA!

@Wild Homes:
Of course nobody is going to belittle a company they NEED to rely on daily to get things done. Microsoft is (IMHO) worse than Sony at trying ot force protections on you. (Windows Genuine Advantage? It installs to your PC whether you like it or not. You have to install it to get some updates/patches.) Let's not even mention the whole DirectX10 on Vista only. How about all those Microsft games that will only install on XP? It HAS been proven that anything that runs on XP will run on 2K. They want to force an update on you. (for the record XP and 2000 are only a year apart and use the same Kernel. I have installed the DirectX SDKs all the way up to current on 2K just fine [after editing the install MSI to remove the stupid OS requirement])

@Everyone else:

I think the latest breed of Sony haters is grasping at straws. Yes, I had a problem with a division of Sony overextending their bounds, but basing your opinion of the entire company on the poor choice of one group is rediculous. Yes, they've been bad in the past at marketing products like BetaMAX. But it truly was a better format and many TV stations still may use it to this day. It was required to get the picture quality your used to seeing in news broadcasts as opposed to VHS cameras. I think (cross that) I know BluRay has a better capacity, comes with a scratch proof layer, and performs better than HDDVD in the long run. So why is everyone against it? Because Sony is one of the many companies backing it. Lame if you ask me. As far as backward compatibility, all Blu-Ray drives still play your old DVDs, so there's no need to upgrade. (How would it be any different with HDDVD?)

It is well known that games are growing in size. They won't fit on DVDs much longer without requiring compression and cutbacks in graphics quality. Hell, I have a game on my PC now that's in Beta that's near 18G in size. I can't tell you which one (for the NDA), but trust me, games are getting bigger. Sure Sony may be biased to putting a BluRay drive in instead of the HDDVD, but they took the step and said, "Developers, here is a drive that you can use to make your games whatever size. Experiment, have fun, use it!" (of course they didn't come outand say it, but including it in the system is word enough). Is this extra space going to make the games looks better? Maybe...maybe not. The graphics is based primarily on the video chip (and that falls on nVidia's shoulders.) The processor helps, but it's there to control the things going on and provide interaction. You can use one (or more) of the 7 SPEs to help you process physics, extra models, or whatever you need.

I simply can't understand why there is such an outcry against Sony to tell you the truth. I think most of it lies on the fact that the system is not cheap, Sony messed up with the rootkit, and people are afraid that the XBox360 they already purchased will somehow be de-valued if they don't back it 100%. Maybe they think that XBox360 or Nintendo Wii will be made in America! Go USA! Home of the money grubbing union worker. (Oh yeah, here comes the intelligent comments!) If you can't afford it on release, don't. Your actions at the checkout line will speak. [frankly, if your not in line, that gives me just that extra chance to get one. So I don't mind.]

Coming on the forums and ranting about how expensive the system is, how you think the video isn't any better or how you don't think the extra media space isn't needed simply doesn't make sense. Why would you be so head strong to berate something you absolutely think will fail? Is it that you think it just might succeed where the XBox360 failed (to bring content to gaming)? Is the above statement about your current XBox investment true (you think your investment will prove wrong)? Do you think the PS3 will come out on top and your XBox will somehow be as unsucessful as the last one? I can't, for the life of me, figure out why you keep posting your opinion (that's truly what it is) on the success of the system that isn't even on the shelves yet.

@Andir

"Coming on the forums and ranting about how expensive the system is, how you think the video isn't any better or how you don't think the extra media space isn't needed simply doesn't make sense."

Does anyone else see the irony in this statement?

That is exactly why blogs and forums are so wildly popular. People like to feel their voices are heard. They like to feel they have an audience for their opinions. And here they do.

Do we really think what we say here will make a difference to Sony? no. Do we think what we say will make a difference to someone here? yes. Do we really care if what we say makes ANY difference? Probably not. We come here to vent feelings concerning the industry we love.

Clearly, there is increased negative feelings toward Sony right now. I don't think most are "hating" on them. We are merely saying they have a long way to go to prove they have our best interests in mind and not just their own. The burden of proof that $600 is worth their device is now on them.

In short, we plan to show Sony, MS, or Ninty our opinions with our wallets when we can. But we are not talking to them here. We are talking to each other.

And rather enjoying it. ^_^

Why does no one look at the advantages of next gen as a standard in gaming... If xbox had HD built in from the start it would have been a huge leap. Everyone is looking at HD/BD as a format for films. But that makes no difference to the ps3(to Sony yes) but not the ps3. Developer has a single 25 or 50gb media vs 3 7gb disks...

Back to the article, Sony as a brand has been broken for a long time. Each department has gone as far as possible to ride the name Sony while braking out their own agenda. It seems some people have a hard time seeing that. Sony's game, music, electronics have been doing their own things and pulling in different directions for some time now. Everyone trying to get notice or money just for their section and not the company as a whole or a brand. That’s basically why there is no strong brand and why everyone can only look at the failures of anything associated to the name "Sony". If they really want to reshape the brand then they need to start acting as 1 company again.

"I think the latest breed of Sony haters is grasping at straws. Yes, I had a problem with a division of Sony overextending their bounds, but basing your opinion of the entire company on the poor choice of one group is rediculous."

Grasping at straws? I completely disagree with you, Andir.

I don't think rootkits are the #1 reason for the recent surge in anit-Sony opinions. I think the #1 reason is the Blu-Ray player. Sony is trying to win a media battle by putting blu-ray in the PS3 which (considerably) jacks up the price. This is not fair to the consumer (gamers). BTW, rootkits have nothing to do with the PS3 but the blu-ray player has everything to do with the PS3. The Sony "group" people are upset with is the PS3 group. I've been calling around trying to find a game retailer that will let me get on the PS3 pre-order list early (to sell on Ebay), and every single retailer has said, "you actually want a PS3?". Not one of them has even mentioned rootkits.


"It is well known that games are growing in size. They won't fit on DVDs much longer without requiring compression and cutbacks in graphics quality."

I agree with you. However, that's not the case today. I invested over 100 hours into Oblivion, a game that fits on one DVD. I would never play a game that is longer than Oblivion (that is what online gaming is for). MS and Sony have taken two completely different paths when it comes to content. MS has firmly stated it believes compression is the key. Sony has said a larger format is the key. Sony sucked at compressing PS2 games, which is why they feel the need to have a larger-sized format (blu-ray) to make room. MS keeps finding ways to put more content on the same size disk. I think in the end, there will be a need for a larger-sized format, but I don't think that day will come until the next generation of consoles.

Who knows... we may be downloading our games by then anyways.

"Who knows... we may be downloading our games by then anyways."

and on that day, microsoft will have finally won the console race...