ahhh, Firmware upgrades. Anyone remember the good old days when if you did a bios upgrade on a PC it was like tossing a coin to see if it became food for the trash can?
Actually, I once listened to a very interesting CBC documentary about the rise of Sony and how there was some major infighting over becoming too diverse and how the need to feed the mass market eventually took over. I think at one time you were probably correct. Sony used to be real innovators and were at the top of the list for many products in innovation and quality. Unfortunately, they slowly succumbed to the temptations that almost always befall superpower companies and finally design became less important than production. Brand and the goodwill (not the friendly kind of goodwill) of the name kept them at the top while R&D per product went way down.
They need to start rethinking things if they haven't already. There is very slow but growing trend where consumers are becoming more educated and are doing more research before they buy. One of the features I love about online shopping is the [Compare] feature many sights have. Choose bunch of models and it stacks them together in a grid of features. It makes it very easy see when a particular brand has less features per dollar verses another. I'm almost always hesitant to waste the space by putting a Sony product on the grid as it almost always has less features per dollar than others.
To be fair to them. Their Playstation products have been pretty top notch and they now have some well regarded MP3 players, but again a price premium is again definitely involved.
Last edited by Murph; 01/06/10 12:52 PM. Reason: clarity
