dex Otaku Posted January 23, 2005 Report Share Posted January 23, 2005 I post my opinions here fairly often. Opinions that have to do with MD and HiMD in particular, and Sony in relation to these formats. I usually come across sounding as though I honestly believe that Sony are the root of all evil, are only interested in making a buck, and don't care about their customers at all.I posted a rather rude comment in one thread wondering if some executive was/were bound to enact seppuku over the admission of omitting mp3 support being an error, among other things. Since then I've wondered about Sony employees coming to the forum and reading my opinions. I wasn't worried about someone from Sony thinking I'm an arsehole, to be frank. What concerned me was that what I said was dishonourable in the extreme. Please allow me to digress on this for a moment.Sony are not the root of all evil.I do not believe that their sole intentions are to screw customers, and despite what I say about their lack of service and support in regards to certain things, I do not think that Sony are a malicious company.Sony is a huge corporation. They are made up of thousands of people in countless different divisions. These different divisions work on such things as market research, product concepts, technical research and development, manufacturing, music and film production and distribution, software design, customer support, marketing/sales, product distribution...Further, they are divided into consumer and professional-oriented divisions.It's easy to see how wires may get crossed within a corporate entity this large. It's easy to see how different divisions might end up working utterly at cross-purposes with one another. It's also easy to see how a corporation that has worked in professional and consumer electronics for many ways might make some blunders crossing over into the territory of writing computer software.It's also easy to see how the directives of one division might cripple the innovations of another. I do not believe that Sony has designed SonicStage or HiMD with the malicious intent of making their customer's experience difficult if not actually unpleasand at times. They just happen to have made a few mistakes in the process, many of which were undoubtedly related to their different divisions giving each other orders that did indeed put everyone at cross-purposes.I can quite easily imagine the engineers who designed the initial prototype HiMD units throwing their hands up in despair over the crippling extent of the music and software divisions' demands regarding DRM. I can also imagine the SS software engineers sitting there saying, "You want us to do what?"Sony are not evil. Sony is just a company made up of people, and despite the tone I so often take, I'd really rather believe that those people have honourable intentions.I have both owned and used many Sony products over the years, from MD and HiMD equipment to U-Matic, Beta, VHS, Video8 and Hi8 video equipment to professional A/B roll video editing stations to televisions and monitors to computers to cassette and 1/4" tape machines to budget sound mixers to cameras to CD players to .. yeah. The list goes on.I'm not going to quit using Sony products because they've made mistakes. They've also done a lot of things right over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROMBUSTERS Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 I posted a rather rude comment in one thread wondering if some executive was/were bound to enact seppuku over the admission of omitting mp3 support being an error, among other things. must have missed that one cuz i actually laughed reading it just now (im a very evil person you see )Sony are not the root of all evil.Agreed, i think they just need more communication with each other AND the consumer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 Sony does come to the forum. Internal search engine spiders from Sony Japan and USA cache all threads periodically [for digestion, I assume]. Now that we have this new forum software I will assign it a tag like Google/Archive.org/etc have to display such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadeclaw Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 "Der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her (The fish stinks from the head)"...While the average Sony employee is far from being evil, my opinion about some elements in the management is far less favourable, especially the music and movie departments.I guess, when the electronics department could work without any interference from the media business, they could easily triple their revenue - Without any increase in piracy, I have to add. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrius Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 (edited) I thought MS was the root of all evil. Seriously, what I can't comprehend is how with all their years of experience, the outrage of many customers, the low sales, and whatever it is they had studied, people at the helm of Sony couldn't see that screwing your customers is screwing yourself. I just don't see the logic of "Proprietary format + Incredibly annoying and illogical restrictions + no advertising + Low quality downloads + just sitting there twiddling their thumbs = Revenue." Yeah right.Case in point: Remember what "Walkman" meant back in the 90's? It = Coolness. Quality. Hip. Useful. Well thought. Now the hot word for a music player is "Ipod".Now, I don't think Seppuku is appropriate for whoever is responsible for the miserable failure of Connect and MD VS Ipod. ( I know you meant it as a joke all right) But I do believe Sony management should really get acquantainced with the software and restrictions they have been imposing on their loyal supporters all this time. And I tell you this with a straight face. I myself am sure that Bill Gates asked his team to develop a more stable OS after experiencing a few BSOD's himself. (I am a happy Win 2K user.)Mutant 1345, I'm partially borrowing your sig from this post on. Edited January 27, 2005 by Syrius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobS Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 Sony is not intentionally screwing its customers. It needs customers. I believe they thought they were big enough to make ATRAC a standard. They also believed all the junk the RIAA was putting out about mp3 downloads killing sales of CDs. They still have not figured out that the sales drop of CDs had many causes like:I can buy a DVD of a movie for about the same price as a CD of the soundtrack.People now spend money on game consoles, PC game software, DVDs, home theater and that all competes with overpriced CDs. Half of all CDs are bought by people over 45 and they are not buying Rock. They by from small labels with a wide variety of music (bluegrass, Celtic, New Age etc).Many CDs have one or two good tracks, the rest are not.People would buy many albums by the Rolling Stones, Allman Bros, James Gang etc but not many by Brittany Spears.Their are more, but the industry (not just Sony) started believing their lowering sales were caused by the customers stealing from them. So they started treating them like thieves.These attitudes (blaming your customers for your problems) are in many industries, not just the recording industry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinwhistle Posted February 11, 2005 Report Share Posted February 11, 2005 Good post Bob S,You have hit the nail on the head there.Regardstinwhistle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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