Sony's hardware is typically pretty good quality wise.

My view is that their stuff is over priced for what it is, and amazingly people will swear it's the best choice bar none.

Take TV's for example. Both panasonic and toshiba make TV's that match or surpass sony's in visual quality. Then consider the Sony is $100 more for less inputs and features. (27" Flat screens)

I understand and realize why this works for them, and even why people continue to miss out. I just wish people were either smart enough to "wake up" or to "shut up" about Sony being far better. There is a thing I like to deal in, I call it reality.

That's fair.

Since it's been awhile since I last bought any major electronic purchases - I thought my opinions of Sony products may have been off. By that I mean the quality has decreased. Price is definitely an issue with Sony, but its not a premium that I'm willing to pay for.

I'm actually going to be in the market for a TV soon - so I'll keep Panasonic and Toshiba in mind.

When looking at tube TVs less than $1000, I totally agree that Toshiba and Panasonic make comparable or better TVs for the price. They are a better value in that range. But once you start getting into high-end tube HDTVs for $2000 or more, Sony is clearly better in terms of features and picture quality.

If you are going High End HDTV then you might as well get the Pioneer Elite, which I'm a happy owner of. :) :P Elite is far superior to anything Sony puts out when it comes to RPTV HDTV in my opinion.

IMO Sony sold out to the NAME HYPE a long time ago over quality. I'm not just talking about me owning 3 Playstations and a Camcorder that sucked (though I own a Sony Digital Camcorder now that I love) but about the VCRs that went bad for my In-Laws (actually X now), the two 32" TVs that went bad for one friend and my brother, etc. Sony has a great top end Tube HDTV but I'm not even sure I would go with them for that.

No, I do NOT have statistical data to back up any claim that the quality of Sony products has gone to crap. :)

This seems to be getting off-track, but I think everyone agrees that Sony products sell even if they are overpriced and aren't the best at what they do. People have grown up with the Sony brand and I think it has some major brand-loyalty. Now Playstation is at another level as far as brand loyalty is concerned. People know what to expect when they buy a Playstation product and trust that they'll have the most choice of games and entertainment of any system on the market. Breadth of Portfolio is the name of the game.

Anyway, back to PSX. :) I think people will buy it because new products are enticing. Plus, more PS2's in houses means more games sold meand more $$ for SCEA through royalties which is pure profit. This is nothing but a bonus for SCEA since they are only providing the already mature PS2 technology. I think Sony needs to clarify their product stance on this. Is it a PS2 with added features, or a set-top box with an added PS2? How they position the product will make all the difference. They want to leverage the Playstation brand, but at the same time appeal to high-end early-adopters.

I've always been satisfied with Sony's consumer level stuff. Works good, never had anything break and I've always gotten pretty good deals on them. I currently have a 27" Sony Wega TV, and Sony Receiver, a Sony progressive scan DVD Player, a Discman, and a really old single disc Sony CD player.

So I definitely have some brand loyalty. If I buy something and it breaks, I'm unlikely to buy that companies products again. With sony, I've used a good deal of stuff and never had any problems, so I'm more likely to buy their stuff, than similarly priced stuff from other companies.

Just a word of advice, I have yet to find a company that does everything right. I personally think that Sony's Wega TVs are good but everything else you listed is pretty much crap. Well, maybe not the Discman since those have very little range of quality anyway.
Sony's Prog Scan DVD players are of poor quality and known to have a heavy case of the Chroma bug. I guess their receivers are ok but I haven't been blown away by them considering you can find better with far lower distortion levels.
Anyway, it is my opinion that anytime you stay all one brand for EVERYTHING you are shopping blindly. I think Pioneer makes the best RPTV HDTV on the market but that doesn't mean I'm going to automatically buy their receiver, regular TVs, speakers, DVD player, etc. Open your mind man. It sounds like you are trapped in the Sony Matrix world. :)

I'm not an audio or videophile so I really don't care and don't even understand most of the "problems" (and don't want to learn about them because I don't want to be anal about that kind of stuff).

Whatever happened to video game systems that just play video games? This sounds like a bad idea. Too many things to go wrong. Just keep it fairly simple and cheap.

I just want to put a game in and play it. All the add-on stuff is worthless to me because I would rather have the choice as to what brands I want to buy. I don't want to be forced to have a Sony all-in-one product.


Seems like a pretty expensive way to test the market. How about surveys or maybe gaming kiosks?

Surveys are great for measuring interest in a product. However, often times they can provide false market analysis. Many people "want" things, but the question is will people pay for them if they actually exsisted. The only way to find out is to make it available.

Heheheh, you might as well be the guy on Matrix who talks about wanting to eat steak that taste like steak even if it isn't steak. In otherwords in his eyes ignorance was bliss and he actually WANTED to be ignorant so his world was simple. I'm not trying to directly call you ignorant but just saying your comments come off in the same way. If you were in the movie you might say, "This is a Sony brand. You are telling me it is good yet it is bad but I just want to imagine it being good. Please reconfigure my brain so all Sony seems good and I can be happy with it no matter what. I want to be ignorant of anything cheaper or better. Just make life simple so all Sony seems good and I don't have to think about choices." LOL!!!

Sony has a system that just plays videogames. Its called the Playstation2. You ever hear of it? ;) This isn't a video game system, it is a set top box. It isn't even made by the same part of the company who does the Playstation series. You aren't forced to buy this product, just buy the PS2 if you want to play videogames. If you want the added features of the PSX, then buy that.

Actually a lot of.... no... the majority of... no... almost all of the US public wants things to be simple. They don't care about knowing technical details about how things work. They just want a nice picture/sound/etc. This is why home-theater-in-a-box is popular. This is why Bose is popular. Yes, these products suck, but their simplicity is their selling point.

This is also one of the reasons why HDTV is struggling to take off. Unlike DVD players, HDTV requires a good deal of research about resolution types, STBs, UHF reception, etc. It requires a consumer to buy a STB, figure out how to get good reception with a UHF antenna. It's a headache for most people. Most people are ignorant and dumb. They just want to plug it in and go. And they like it that way. They want to worry about more important things like their families, social life, kids, work, school, etc. Computers didn't take off and become commonplace until Macintosh and Windows came into play. It made it easily accessible to everyone who didn't have time to invest in learning.

Personally I do tons of research on consumer electronics and not even two of my products are from the same company. I also try to encourage other people to do research and be more knowledgeable about their purchases.

But most people don't care, and most people will continue not to care. That's just how it is.

I'm saying I want to be ignorant to certain things. I don't want to be an audio/videophile that can't enjoy a movie because there's a little grain in the transfer, some edge enhancement, slightly misframed shots, bass a little too low, etc.

I wasn't saying anything about wanting to think Sony was the best. I bought the Sony stuff because I've had good experiences with it and I got it all fairly cheap.

I'm simply saying I watch movies, play games, and listen to music for the fun, entertainment, and artistic quality. I have a decent TV and a surround sound system just to get the surrround experience. I don't want to be come some anal home theater geek that can't enjoy a movie because of a few minor flaws 99.9% of people would never notice.

I'm just into movies, music etc, not technology.