[McG]

Following Flameon's excellent post, I remember when Sony bought Columbia and there were reported battles internally that content had to be protected from the hardware. This led to decisions (as Flameon noted) that consumers didn't want.

I remember Walkman devices being everywhere; from waterproof sports ones to ones that were barely bigger than a cassette case.

I seem to remember reading quite a few times that it was Sony that should have developed the MP3 player, not apple, including the apple store. obviously that isn't how it turned out, but Sony had software and hardware and just couldn't bring it all together. it would be a different world in consumer electronics.

I can capture the hope and fear for Sony in a personal experience. I bought a Sony TV on black Friday. beautiful TV and a great price and it came with a sound bar. the quality is so good, and my thoughts about how well integrated it would be with a PS4, that I would consider buying the console at some point. sound bar works well too from a function perspective, and you can tell that they thought about the connections as it is a module that can be changed by market for ease of manufacturing. so far so good. the problem is that the optical cable has to go in at a right angle and the optical cable would have to be bent or a special cable acquired. it's a poor design decision not made with the consumer in mind.

Sony needs to hire some end users to help them get it right beyond consoles.