Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: And today is the conclusion of the Sony story and epic,
Speaker 1: if ever there was one, And just to peek behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, the last couple of episodes I recorded, we're
Speaker 1: from a couple of weeks ago. Episodes one and two
Speaker 1: I recorded in one go in the studio, and then
Speaker 1: I had a whole bunch of trips two different locations
Speaker 1: to give presentations, and I ended up uh putting off
Speaker 1: recording till today, which is a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 1: So if a sound remarkably different from parts one and two,
Speaker 1: that's why. So let's talk about Sony and let's kind
Speaker 1: of bring ourselves up to current day. I promise that
Speaker 1: as we get closer to current day, I get less
Speaker 1: and less detailed dates, because otherwise there'd be four parts
Speaker 1: to this and I think that's stretching it even for me.
Speaker 1: So in the last episode, I concluded the show by
Speaker 1: talking about Sony's battle in the VCR Wars. But during
Speaker 1: that same time, the company was doing some other stuff,
Speaker 1: So some of this is going to overlap with the
Speaker 1: end of the previous episode. Back in nineteen seventy, Sony
Speaker 1: became listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It also
Speaker 1: opened up Sony in Germany. It was eventually called Sony
Speaker 1: Deutschland UH in nineteen eighty. Sony would also open businesses
Speaker 1: in Spain and France and other nations over the next
Speaker 1: few years and would become a truly global company. So
Speaker 1: this was a big move. Remember, this whole company started
Speaker 1: out as a small Japanese organization and now had become
Speaker 1: a multinational global entity. Nineteen seventy nine also saw the
Speaker 1: introduction of one of the most iconic Sony products of
Speaker 1: all time, one of their most successful products, the Walkman.
Speaker 1: Now officially it was called the TPS dash L two,
Speaker 1: and it lacked a recording function. It could play and
Speaker 1: it could fast forward and rewind and stop, and that's
Speaker 1: about it. But some people were saying, well, because there's
Speaker 1: no record function, it's not gonna sell very well. But
Speaker 1: it ended up becoming an insanely popular product, and it
Speaker 1: launched an entire new product line of portable tape recorders
Speaker 1: or really tape players because they couldn't record. The company
Speaker 1: also introduced lightweight headphones, very important along with the invention
Speaker 1: of the portable tape player, and these lightweight headphone headphones
Speaker 1: were called the m d R DASH three or h
Speaker 1: dash ai r hair headphones. C Sony knew that if
Speaker 1: they were to rely upon traditional, big, clunky headphones, no
Speaker 1: one was going to buy a portable tape player. It
Speaker 1: would just not be practical. So they had to invent
Speaker 1: very lightweight headphones that would work with their new product.
Speaker 1: So they did, and that together they ended up being
Speaker 1: a big success. Now, the next line, or the next
Speaker 1: evolution of the portable tape player was the w M two.
Speaker 1: This is the traditional, the classic Walkman we think about,
Speaker 1: which launched in one. This was the one that really
Speaker 1: hit it big. They Sony knew from the tps L
Speaker 1: two that they were onto something, but it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the w M two in the Walkman too, that they
Speaker 1: really realized that this was a huge hit. It was
Speaker 1: smaller than its predecessor and also had some other features
Speaker 1: to help improve performance quality, and it became the standard
Speaker 1: portable cassette player. So essentially you either had a Walkman
Speaker 1: or you had some sort of uh portable tape player
Speaker 1: that was essentially a Walkman knockoff. That's really what it
Speaker 1: boiled down to. Also in two, Sony introduced the MP
Speaker 1: d R E two five two, which it doesn't really
Speaker 1: have a very catchy name, but they were the first
Speaker 1: in ear headphones or earbuds as we would call them. Again,
Speaker 1: that's a standard that you see everywhere today, but at
Speaker 1: the time was completely unheard of. And uh, I really
Speaker 1: can't stress how big a game changer this was in
Speaker 1: the field of music. Suddenly you could take your music
Speaker 1: with you. You didn't have to have a tape deck
Speaker 1: in your car. Most cars didn't have tape decks. In fact,
Speaker 1: some of them still had eight track players. Um, he
Speaker 1: didn't have to carry around a big, clunky tape recorder
Speaker 1: that had one lousy speaker, so you would get everything
Speaker 1: in Monto. You can actually have stereo cassettes played in
Speaker 1: a portable cassette player. You could do things like go
Speaker 1: jogging or workout, stuff that we take for granted now
Speaker 1: because we can do all this stuff with our phones
Speaker 1: these days, or or MP three players if you're still
Speaker 1: sporting one of those, But back at two that was
Speaker 1: unheard of. It was huge, and it really changed the
Speaker 1: way people interacted with their technology. In fact, I would
Speaker 1: argue that the Walkman is kind of the beginning of
Speaker 1: this portable technology craze that has carried up through mobile phones, smartphones,
Speaker 1: handheld gaming devices, all of that sort of stuff. I
Speaker 1: think the Walkman kind of proved that people really wanted
Speaker 1: technology they could take with themselves on the go, and
Speaker 1: so Sony was a pioneer, not to be confused with
Speaker 1: pioneer the sound company in this space. In Sony engineers
Speaker 1: began to work on developing a video camera recorder using
Speaker 1: a new type of semiconductor new at that time called
Speaker 1: the charge coupled device or cc D. That's something that's
Speaker 1: still an important component in many, but not all, digital cameras.
Speaker 1: There's actually a couple different sensors that are used in
Speaker 1: digital cameras. Some u c c D and some use others.
Speaker 1: This camera was meant to record directly to cassette in
Speaker 1: the camera itself. That was also huge in Sony launched
Speaker 1: the BMC one camera, which recorded straight to Beta max tape.
Speaker 1: Is a larger camera like one of those shoulder mounted
Speaker 1: type cameras. The colloquial term for this type of video
Speaker 1: camera recorder is the camcorder, meaning that you use the
Speaker 1: same gadget to both shoot the video and record the video. Again,
Speaker 1: this is something we take for granted today, but before cancorders,
Speaker 1: the way it would work is you used a video
Speaker 1: camera two to convert light into a signal, which then
Speaker 1: you would send over a cable to a recording device,
Speaker 1: which really limited how you could use cameras right a
Speaker 1: video camera. You couldn't just take a video camera out
Speaker 1: on the go. It had to have a cable attaching
Speaker 1: itself to some sort of storage device that it would
Speaker 1: record to the signal to a medium like magnetic tape,
Speaker 1: and that would also have to have its own power supply.
Speaker 1: So createing a cam quorter that could do all of
Speaker 1: this in one unit was a big deal. Now. The
Speaker 1: BMC one hundred cost fifteen hundred dollars at launch in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, and I adjusted that for inflation, so
Speaker 1: in today's dollars that's around thirty six hundred dollars, so
Speaker 1: twice more than twice as much what it went for
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three, so cost fiftellars. If you were
Speaker 1: to buy it today, it would be like buying something
Speaker 1: for thirty six hundred dollars. And it was large and bulky,
Speaker 1: but switching to the c c D system is what
Speaker 1: would allow Sony to make things a bit smaller. Sony's
Speaker 1: team was able to create a smaller camcorder using cc
Speaker 1: D technology, but it wouldn't be until before Sony could
Speaker 1: market one to consumers, and it was the eight millimeter
Speaker 1: cam quorder called the c c D V eight. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons for the delay was not purely technological.
Speaker 1: Sony wanted to work with other companies to establish a
Speaker 1: standard format so that way they wouldn't enter into another
Speaker 1: VCR like battle on the video camera front. They were
Speaker 1: already fighting Beta Max versus VHS, and they thought, well,
Speaker 1: we don't really want to have thirty different video cassette
Speaker 1: formats out there, because that'll just confuse the marketplace. It
Speaker 1: will mean that consumers will get very upset because they
Speaker 1: can't just buy what they want to buy. They would
Speaker 1: be forced to buy all in one system, and if
Speaker 1: that system ultimately failed, then it's wasted money. In other words,
Speaker 1: if I buy Sony's camera and it means I have
Speaker 1: to buy Sony's player in order to watch the cassettes
Speaker 1: that I record, and then Sony were to go out
Speaker 1: of business. I would never be able to buy more
Speaker 1: cassettes for the player I have, I'd never be able
Speaker 1: to shoot more footage, and I would be stuck with
Speaker 1: technology that was obsolete eat. So in order to avoid that,
Speaker 1: Sony said, let's all get together and establish a standard
Speaker 1: so that way, no matter who does well or who
Speaker 1: doesn't do well, people will still be able to buy
Speaker 1: this technology with confidence. They won't they won't hold back
Speaker 1: out of fear that a company might go under and
Speaker 1: you'd be stuck with an obsolete piece of equipment. Pretty
Speaker 1: forward thinking. As a result, Sony and a hundred twenty
Speaker 1: six other companies collaborated on the eight Millimeter Video Conference
Speaker 1: to hash things out. Now, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: think that this charge couple device was super advanced. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was definitely a big step forward at the time,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty primitive compared to today's standards. The c
Speaker 1: c D and Sony's camera had a resolution of just
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty thousand pixels, not megapixels. Two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: thousand pixels megapixel means million, essentially million pixels. The color
Speaker 1: are captured by c c ds was vibrant, but the
Speaker 1: resolution was fairly primitive. Now you're looking at a much
Speaker 1: smaller screen, so it didn't matter as much. You know,
Speaker 1: there weren't many people who had very big TVs back
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, so even if you're showing it
Speaker 1: on a television, chances are the resolution wasn't that big
Speaker 1: a deal because you weren't looking at a huge screen,
Speaker 1: and the smaller screen meant that the lower resolution didn't
Speaker 1: show up as much switching back over to audio. So
Speaker 1: in nine we had to backtrack just a bit. Here.
Speaker 1: Sony partnered with another electronics company, Phillips, and Sony and
Speaker 1: Phillips worked together to create a new medium for music,
Speaker 1: and that was the compact disc or c D. Now,
Speaker 1: earlier storage media had relied on analog methods, such as
Speaker 1: the grooves in a vinyl album or the magnetic information
Speaker 1: stored on a cassette tape, but compact discs were to
Speaker 1: store information optically digitally in bits, zeros, and ones on
Speaker 1: a shiny disk. A laser would read the information off
Speaker 1: the disc, and a converter would change the digital information
Speaker 1: into an analog signal to be played back on speakers.
Speaker 1: You have to have your analog speakers. Phillips and Sony
Speaker 1: worked to create a standard so there wouldn't be competing
Speaker 1: formats in the marketplace. And originally the CD was only
Speaker 1: meant for sound files. The engineers didn't intend for this
Speaker 1: to be a storage medium for all sorts of data.
Speaker 1: They just thought, oh, this is kind of like a
Speaker 1: vinyl album is for for music. So it came as
Speaker 1: a bit of surprise to them when engineers began to
Speaker 1: use CDs to store computer data and not just music.
Speaker 1: That was a big change, and uh really excited the
Speaker 1: engineers quite a bit because they just had not anticipated that. Now,
Speaker 1: the original goal when they were coming up, when Sony
Speaker 1: and Phillips were cooperating in order to create the CD
Speaker 1: was create a disc that would be capable of storing
Speaker 1: one hour's worth of music on it. Now, later they
Speaker 1: decided one hour wasn't sufficient. They wanted to go up
Speaker 1: to seventy four minutes. So sixty minutes to seventy four minutes.
Speaker 1: So what was the reason why why go from sixty
Speaker 1: minutes to seventy four Well, the story is, and I
Speaker 1: cannot verify that this is correct, but this is how
Speaker 1: it's reported. The story is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is seventy
Speaker 1: four minutes long, and they felt that a CD should
Speaker 1: be able to hold the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth on
Speaker 1: one side. So CDs can hold seventy four minutes of
Speaker 1: music because of Beethoven. Now that also meant that it
Speaker 1: dictated how big the discs had to be, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they could cram more information on the same space.
Speaker 1: They actually used the physical space of the disk to
Speaker 1: encode information onto it. So to go from sixty minutes
Speaker 1: to seventy four minutes meant that the discs actually had
Speaker 1: to be physice a little larger than they originally hadn't
Speaker 1: had planned on being. So you could say that the
Speaker 1: reason as standard c D is the size that it
Speaker 1: is is because of Beethoven. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool, not only because I'm a technology nerd, but
Speaker 1: also because it happened to like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and
Speaker 1: awful lot that's the one that has owed to joy
Speaker 1: in it. In two, Sony introduced the world's first CD player,
Speaker 1: the c d P one oh one two. I was
Speaker 1: actually surprised to learn the CD player dates all the
Speaker 1: way back to two probably because I didn't get my
Speaker 1: first CD player until I was a teenager, so we're
Speaker 1: talking maybe nine, so it had been out for quite
Speaker 1: some time, which is actually a good thing, because when
Speaker 1: CD players first came out, they were pretty expensive. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so c d P one oh one it's sold
Speaker 1: for about seven thirty dollars when it went on sale
Speaker 1: two today, that would be around one thousand, eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: So you'd be spending the equivalent of just under two
Speaker 1: grand to buy just a CD player when it first
Speaker 1: came out. Uh, that's a lot of money. Was the
Speaker 1: reason why I did not have a CD player until
Speaker 1: much later, when the prices had gone down dramatically. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't even aware that c d s were a
Speaker 1: thing in the early eighties. To me, music was all
Speaker 1: vinyl and cassette tape, mostly cassette tape at that point. Um,
Speaker 1: if I went into a music shop, there'd be a
Speaker 1: vinyl section and then a larger tape section. And it
Speaker 1: was years before I started seeing CDs pop up, and
Speaker 1: then of course eventually they replaced everything else. Now these days,
Speaker 1: we're starting to see vinyl comeback as sort of an
Speaker 1: answer to the all digital model that we've been in
Speaker 1: for the past couple of years anyway. Two, we get
Speaker 1: that first CD player. About a month after the CD
Speaker 1: P one oh one launched, Phillips would launch its own
Speaker 1: CD player, but it also can hang some components that
Speaker 1: were designed and built by Sony, so there were even
Speaker 1: Sony parts in the second CD player to ever launch,
Speaker 1: even though it was under the Phillips brand name. In
Speaker 1: Sony introduced the world's first portable CD player. So just
Speaker 1: two years after the first CD player comes out, Sony
Speaker 1: introduces the portable one. It was called the D five hundred.
Speaker 1: CDs were still very young in nineteen eighty four, however,
Speaker 1: and it would take a few years for the format
Speaker 1: to really gain traction on the more established cassette market.
Speaker 1: So while the portable model was out, CDs just had
Speaker 1: not quite caught on in a big way yet, not
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four. It would take a couple more years.
Speaker 1: It was already pretty clear that they were going to
Speaker 1: be a strong competitor against cassettes and vinyl, but the
Speaker 1: cassette tape market was just so entrenched at that point
Speaker 1: that it took a while for CDs to undermine it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get back to more about Sony in just
Speaker 1: a min it, But first let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. All right, and we're back, and
Speaker 1: now let's get into something really juicy. We're at nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. That's the year that Sony would acquire Columbia
Speaker 1: Pictures Entertainment and would rename it Sony Pictures Entertainment Incorporated
Speaker 1: in Now, Columbia Pictures Entertainment also has a very long
Speaker 1: history that predates the founding of Sony. You remember in
Speaker 1: the last episode I talked about CBS and how when
Speaker 1: Sony purchased CBS Records that that actually predated Sony itself
Speaker 1: the company. Same is true with Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen eighteen as the Cone Brandt Cone
Speaker 1: Film Sales or CBC Film Sales Company. It became Columbia
Speaker 1: Pictures in nineteen four And yes, I could do a
Speaker 1: full episode just about Sony Pictures in Entertainment, no problem.
Speaker 1: It would be a full episode complete with drama, betrayal, triumph, tragedy.
Speaker 1: But do you know what that would mean? Fourteen more
Speaker 1: Sony episodes? And I think you guys would kill me
Speaker 1: at that point. But if you want me to do
Speaker 1: an episode or two about Sony Pictures specifically, please let
Speaker 1: me know send me a message. In the meantime, I'll
Speaker 1: give you kind of the cliffs Notes version of what
Speaker 1: Sony Pictures is all about. So Columbia had changed hands
Speaker 1: several times before Sony purchased it. In Coca Cola purchased
Speaker 1: the company, but then in Coca Cola spun the company off,
Speaker 1: and then that was bought by TriStar Pictures to become
Speaker 1: Columbia Pictures Entertainment before Sony scooped it up. Now, some
Speaker 1: of the famous stuff Columbia Pictures made before Sony bought
Speaker 1: them included nearly two hundred three Stooges shorts. The company
Speaker 1: also distributed Mickey Mouse cartoons for Disney. It was also
Speaker 1: a player in the classic television world through its division
Speaker 1: that was called Screen Gems. Because of Columbia, we got
Speaker 1: shows like The Monkeys, I Dream of Genie, The Partridge Family,
Speaker 1: and Bewitched. Famous movies produced by the company include The
Speaker 1: Bridge Over the River, Kuai, Oliver, which is the musical
Speaker 1: adaptation of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Easy Rider, Stir
Speaker 1: Crazy Stripes, Twittsie, The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, the original version,
Speaker 1: and more. Sony spent four point nine billion dollars to
Speaker 1: buy the studio and millions more to get it up
Speaker 1: to speed. Besides Sony Pictures, the company also created a
Speaker 1: another company to handle more art house style cinema and
Speaker 1: they called that one, Columbia TriStar Pictures, and Sony spent
Speaker 1: another four point eight billion dollars and a leveraged buyout
Speaker 1: of Metro Metro Goldwyn Meyer or MGM Studio. Now, this
Speaker 1: was also the division of Sony that was hit by
Speaker 1: the infamous hack in two thousand and fourteen, in which
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of data was stolen from Sony and
Speaker 1: distributed on the web, revealing company strategies, employee salaries and more.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this hack for a second. I
Speaker 1: know this is jumping to just a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: but it relates to the entertainment branch of Sony. So
Speaker 1: a group called Guardians of Peace or GOP took credit
Speaker 1: for the hack, and they said that their purpose for
Speaker 1: the hack was because Sony had an upcoming film at
Speaker 1: the time called The Interview. And if you don't remember
Speaker 1: what the interview is about It's a comedy about two
Speaker 1: uh documentary or slash filmmaker types, an actor and a
Speaker 1: director who get pulled in to become assassins. Their job
Speaker 1: is to assassinate North Korea's leader, Kim Jong and some
Speaker 1: security experts said that the attack on Sony originated from
Speaker 1: North Korea or agents working on behalf of North Korea,
Speaker 1: and that this was all politically motivated. That in other words,
Speaker 1: North Korea was insulted that this movie was going to
Speaker 1: become a thing, and so set hackers on Sony, who
Speaker 1: then penetrated Sony's security, ransacked the databasis for tons of information,
Speaker 1: including things like people salary info, and then leaked it
Speaker 1: to the media. Now North Korea denies these allegations and
Speaker 1: says that while it thinks the hackers were brilliant and
Speaker 1: wonderful people, they did not actually tell the hackers to
Speaker 1: do this. So North Korea saying, hey, it wasn't us.
Speaker 1: We think it's awesome, but it wasn't us. Now that's
Speaker 1: not the only opinion about the hack. There are other
Speaker 1: security experts who think perhaps it was not North Korea
Speaker 1: or agents working on behalf of North Krea, that perpetrated
Speaker 1: the hacks. Some people say, no, it was probably someone
Speaker 1: from the inside who already had access to all of
Speaker 1: this stuff. They didn't break into Sony's database. They had
Speaker 1: access to it because they were an employee for Sony
Speaker 1: and for some reason they got upset at Sony. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe something happened, maybe they were let go but still
Speaker 1: had access to Sony systems, or maybe there was some
Speaker 1: other perceived slight and that as a result, they stole
Speaker 1: a ton of information and then leaked it to the press,
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, maybe that was really like a
Speaker 1: kind of internal revenge story and not an external hacker
Speaker 1: at all. And then either someone else came forward to
Speaker 1: claim responsibility a k a. Guardians of Peace, or the
Speaker 1: person on the inside who did all the stealing created
Speaker 1: Guardians of Peace in the first place, just to kind
Speaker 1: of cover the tracks. We don't really know the answer
Speaker 1: to this. There are a lot of security experts who
Speaker 1: say it was definitely North Korea or someone working with
Speaker 1: North Korea. There are some who say, I don't see
Speaker 1: evidence of that. I think it was an inside job.
Speaker 1: I was more of an inside job kind of person,
Speaker 1: believing that narrative more than the North Korean narrative, but honestly,
Speaker 1: completely objectively, I do not know what is the truth.
Speaker 1: I do not know if it was in fact a
Speaker 1: North Korean hacker or someone working under the direction of
Speaker 1: North Korea, or if it was an inside job. I
Speaker 1: have no way of knowing. And the only reason I
Speaker 1: leaned towards inside job was just that the security experts
Speaker 1: I follow, many of whom were you know, talking about
Speaker 1: this at length when it happened. I thought that that
Speaker 1: was the most likely of the possibilities, But honestly, it
Speaker 1: could be either way, and I have no way of knowing.
Speaker 1: Very interesting story, though. I would love to do a
Speaker 1: full story about the Sony hack that goes into deep detail,
Speaker 1: but to be perfectly honest, I don't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot more information on it. I would have to see
Speaker 1: if I could get in a security expert in to
Speaker 1: talk about the investigation. It may very well be that
Speaker 1: there's some evidence that has a much more definitive answer
Speaker 1: to who perpetrated this, and I'm just not aware of it.
Speaker 1: Entirely possible, but let's get back to the main timeline.
Speaker 1: So Sony, that that hack caused Sony endless amounts of grief.
Speaker 1: There were plans that were revealed that Sony had not
Speaker 1: made public. The the salary things caused a lot of
Speaker 1: issues internally. It was a huge demoralizing force within Sony pictures. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it the ramifications of that are still being felt today.
Speaker 1: All right back to the main timeline. This makes us
Speaker 1: jump back to Sony launched an HD capable television set
Speaker 1: with a sixteen by nine ratio. Now, televisions before, I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of you remember this, maybe not all
Speaker 1: of you. Uh, their standard ratio was four by three,
Speaker 1: meaning that you know, you're talking about width versus height,
Speaker 1: so four units by three units or sixteen units by
Speaker 1: nine units. And then you you know, by figuring out
Speaker 1: the width, you know what the height is going to
Speaker 1: be because of this ratio. So sixteen by nine is
Speaker 1: what we usually call wide screen, right, that's the standard
Speaker 1: wide screen. They're also sixteen by ten there, you know
Speaker 1: it's not sixty nine is not the only standard out there,
Speaker 1: but it's the most common one. Now in launched it's
Speaker 1: sixteen by nine ratio HD capable TV. It was a
Speaker 1: thirty six inch television called the k W dasht h
Speaker 1: D That was however, it wouldn't be until nine three
Speaker 1: and the Digital HD TV Grand Alliance that HD signals
Speaker 1: would become more common and standardized. You can tell that
Speaker 1: companies were hoping that three D technology would follow a
Speaker 1: similar path as HD, and the ideas get the technology
Speaker 1: that can play this stuff out there first, and then
Speaker 1: hope that the standard you create is compatible by the
Speaker 1: time it actually starts to perpetuate out in the wild.
Speaker 1: So we've seen that with HD and we're seeing it
Speaker 1: now with two K and four K video. They were
Speaker 1: hoping for the same thing with three D, but that
Speaker 1: did not happen. I think consumers by and large have
Speaker 1: rejected three D television for multiple reasons, but the same
Speaker 1: thing was true of HD at the time. They weren't
Speaker 1: sure that this was going to become the new standard.
Speaker 1: They were pushing for it. But if you were an
Speaker 1: early adopter of HD television's in the very early days,
Speaker 1: that was there was hardly anything for you to watch
Speaker 1: in HD. There was like a cable channel that was
Speaker 1: broadcast on a lot of cable providers that gave very
Speaker 1: beautiful pictures of like sunrise is in sunsets or ocean life.
Speaker 1: But it took a few years for HD signals to
Speaker 1: start broadcasting at at a high enough density where buying
Speaker 1: an HD television had some returns on it. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: just had an expensive, pretty TV that was showing Standard
Speaker 1: definition because that's all there was now. In while playing tennis,
Speaker 1: Achio Marita suffered a stroke and sadly, from that moment
Speaker 1: until the end of his life, he would be bound
Speaker 1: to a wheelchair and he would pass away at age
Speaker 1: seventy eight in nine, so one of the the founding
Speaker 1: voices of Sony passes away seventy eight years old. In
Speaker 1: Sony also in formed a new company, Sony Computer Entertainment, Incorporated,
Speaker 1: later rebranded as Sony Network Entertainment and later still as
Speaker 1: Sony Interactive Entertainment, and it would become a whole owned
Speaker 1: subsidiary of Sony itself in two thousand four. This new
Speaker 1: branch of Sony was formed in partnership with the Sony
Speaker 1: Music Entertainment Japan division and focused on developing products for
Speaker 1: Sony's entry into home video games. They wanted to get
Speaker 1: into that market in the early nineties because it was
Speaker 1: it was ripe, it was one of those it was
Speaker 1: starting to come become really competitive again and the first
Speaker 1: major product would come out that was the original Sony PlayStation.
Speaker 1: Now again, I could do another full episode or two
Speaker 1: or three about Sony Interactive Entertainment. I could even do
Speaker 1: one or two at least on the Sony PlayStation, and
Speaker 1: probably someday I will. But just like Sony Music and
Speaker 1: Sony Entertainment Sony Pictures, UH, this series would go on
Speaker 1: forever if I included it at this point. So again
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the high points, and then
Speaker 1: later down the road, if you guys want to hear
Speaker 1: a full episode or two about Sony PlayStation or Sony
Speaker 1: Interactive Entertainment, I'll do it. Then here are the big points.
Speaker 1: Before the PlayStation, Sony had actually entered the console market
Speaker 1: through a partnership with Nintendo that happened in Night. Sony
Speaker 1: and Nintendo worked together to create the Super Disc CD
Speaker 1: ROM attachment for the S and E S or Super
Speaker 1: Nintendo Entertainment System, but there were some licensing issues and
Speaker 1: some other bureaucratic nonsense that prevented the Super Disc CD
Speaker 1: ROM attachment from ever being released. So Sony made it,
Speaker 1: but it never hit store shelves, so that project was
Speaker 1: a bust. But in Sony tried it again. This time
Speaker 1: they worked with Phillips to help create the Phillips c
Speaker 1: d I, which was a CD based entertainment system Compact
Speaker 1: disc Entertainment system, and that ended up being a commercial flop.
Speaker 1: It was competing against too many other systems and the
Speaker 1: market was just so diluted that it didn't get any traction.
Speaker 1: It was also pretty expensive. Now, the original PlayStation when
Speaker 1: it was in its original design, not the one that
Speaker 1: went to store shelves, but in development in Sony, the
Speaker 1: original PlayStation could actually play S and E S cartridges.
Speaker 1: It actually had a cartridge port as well as the
Speaker 1: CD drive, but Sony only made two hundred of them,
Speaker 1: and then they decided to change the design, so they
Speaker 1: got rid of the cartridge port at that point, So
Speaker 1: those two hundred were the only ones ever made that
Speaker 1: could play both PlayStation games and S and E S games.
Speaker 1: Now at the time where they took the cartridge port out,
Speaker 1: that's when the product became known as the PlayStation X
Speaker 1: or PSX and it launched in December in Japan. The
Speaker 1: rest of the world would have to wait until the
Speaker 1: fall of for it to debut. Now, the original PlayStations
Speaker 1: competitors included the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Turbographics sixteen,
Speaker 1: the Sega Genesis, and the Panasonic three d Oh. And
Speaker 1: now we're talking about my childhood. I mean I remember
Speaker 1: all of those systems coming out. I didn't known any
Speaker 1: of them. The only console I had owned really at
Speaker 1: that point was an Atard and then the video game
Speaker 1: crack market crashed, and when the Nintendo came out, my
Speaker 1: parents weren't so keen on spending a huge amount of
Speaker 1: money on buying yet another console, so understandably, and I
Speaker 1: did not have a source of income to save up
Speaker 1: for such a console. So I would occasionally play S
Speaker 1: and E S at a friend's house, and uh, I
Speaker 1: would it would? I think it would be until college
Speaker 1: before I really started playing PlayStation games. So the PlayStation
Speaker 1: did very well in this market, largely because it's graphics
Speaker 1: quality and sound quality were so much better than most
Speaker 1: of the other systems out there. I think the Dreamcast
Speaker 1: could give it a real run for its money, but
Speaker 1: no one was supporting the dream Cast. It's just sad.
Speaker 1: I love the Dreamcast, by the way. Also, I love
Speaker 1: the PlayStation. I'm not particularly picky here. I'm not taking sides,
Speaker 1: but I am sad that the Dreamcast never really had
Speaker 1: the success that it deserved. But the PlayStation did really
Speaker 1: well and it would eventually rise up to become Nintendo's
Speaker 1: chief rival. At that time, Nintendo had been dominant with
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo, but now the
Speaker 1: PlayStation was really challenging the company. Now, since then, we've
Speaker 1: had several evolutions of the PlayStation, and like I said,
Speaker 1: I could do a full PlayStation episode sometime in the future,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to do one now, So I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go through every iteration of the PlayStation.
Speaker 1: We're up to PS four now, we're actually at the
Speaker 1: second generation of PS four, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: cover all of those. So listen out for a PlayStation
Speaker 1: episode sometime in the future and I will get into
Speaker 1: that story at that point. Back to Sony. In they
Speaker 1: released the first consumer digital video cam quarter the d
Speaker 1: c r v X one thousand and that same year,
Speaker 1: the company established the Sony Communication Network Corporation, and as
Speaker 1: the name indicates, this is the branch of Sony that
Speaker 1: became an Internet service provider. So now we've got Sony
Speaker 1: that is in charge of creating content like Sony Pictures
Speaker 1: and Sony Music. And we also have Sony the Internet
Speaker 1: service provider, and we already have an early example of
Speaker 1: a potential conflict of interest where a company is both
Speaker 1: providing internet service and the stuff that could be delivered
Speaker 1: over that service. Um Sony also participated in creating the
Speaker 1: standard known as the Digital Versatile Disc or DVD, so
Speaker 1: Sony had a voice at the table when that standard
Speaker 1: was being created. In Sony launched the popular cyber Shot
Speaker 1: brand of digital camera still camera h This was the
Speaker 1: first digital camera I ever owned, was a cyber shot.
Speaker 1: It was actually probably a cyber shot too, or something
Speaker 1: that probably wasn't the original, but I did own a
Speaker 1: Sony cyber Shot. It was a pretty decent little digital camera.
Speaker 1: In Sony introduced the world to a robotic dog named
Speaker 1: Ibo a I b O. And that was the year
Speaker 1: that the shiro Kia Department Store, the original home of
Speaker 1: what would one day become Sony, closed and closed in January.
Speaker 1: All right, we're in the home stretch, but before we
Speaker 1: get there, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back, and now it's the year two
Speaker 1: thousand on October two, Sony would partner with Pioneer and
Speaker 1: unveil DVR Blue. Now this is the technology that would
Speaker 1: eventually evolve into Blu Ray. On November one, two thousand,
Speaker 1: Sony announced the Ultra Density Optical or u d O format,
Speaker 1: which was the blue laser optical format that again would
Speaker 1: become Blu ray discs. In two thousand two, Sony would
Speaker 1: go all in on the new format, and now it's
Speaker 1: officially called Blu Ray. But also in two thousand two,
Speaker 1: Arrival would arise and face off against Sony and the
Speaker 1: Blu Ray standard. And actually it was a couple of them,
Speaker 1: is Toshiba and NYC primarily, and Toshiba and NBC came
Speaker 1: up with a different format called HD DVD. So here's
Speaker 1: the high definition war, the standard beyond DVD, and we
Speaker 1: see another format war come out. And I remember in
Speaker 1: the last big format war, Sony was backing Beta max
Speaker 1: and the company lost. Beta Max did not become the
Speaker 1: standard for home entertainment VHS did. So I've done a
Speaker 1: full episode, actually a couple of them, about Blu ray
Speaker 1: versus h D d v D. You might even remember
Speaker 1: that way back when we first started tech stuff, my
Speaker 1: co host Chris Palette and I had actually visited c
Speaker 1: e S that year. Those two thousand eight that was
Speaker 1: the year when h D DVD pulled out of c
Speaker 1: e S at the last minute, leaving a big empty
Speaker 1: spot on the show floor. Essentially, that was when the
Speaker 1: HD DVD standard gave up the ghost. It had been
Speaker 1: a war from two thousand two to two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight which one was going to become the standard? Was
Speaker 1: it gonna be blu ray or was it going to
Speaker 1: be h D DVD, And for a while h D
Speaker 1: DVD was. It looked like it was dominating, but eventually
Speaker 1: Blue ray one out, and it is in many ways
Speaker 1: the superior format when you get to certain technical specs,
Speaker 1: but we all know that it's not necessarily the best
Speaker 1: format that wins. Sometimes other elements will allow one product
Speaker 1: to win over another one. It doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: the one that one was the better product. In this case,
Speaker 1: I think blue ray really was, even though at the
Speaker 1: time I was kind of supporting h D DVD because
Speaker 1: it was cheaper when like those those players and the
Speaker 1: formats were less expensive than Blue ray. But again, like
Speaker 1: all technologies, if enough people adopted over time, that technology
Speaker 1: becomes less expensive because of manufacturing improvements and other issues
Speaker 1: that reduced the cost of producing the technology. So if
Speaker 1: you stick with it long enough and if enough people adopted,
Speaker 1: prices come down. Um, both of those things are important
Speaker 1: for that to happen. Though, so Blue Ray one out.
Speaker 1: Uh this time, Sony would end up backing the the
Speaker 1: successful format In the format wars. Back to two thousand one,
Speaker 1: Sony established the Sony Ericsson Mobile communication branch. Today it's
Speaker 1: just called Sony Mobile. So then they got into the
Speaker 1: cell phone industry. You know, they had already been in
Speaker 1: internet service providers, they had gotten into computers, they had
Speaker 1: gotten into television's. Uh, you know, they were they're essentially
Speaker 1: branching out as much as they could and getting involved
Speaker 1: in as many different industries, especially in the electronics field,
Speaker 1: as possible. In two thousand three, Sony would actually introduce
Speaker 1: the Blu ray disc player. In two thousand four, they
Speaker 1: introduced the first four K l c D panel. Now,
Speaker 1: this was the first panel to actually meet four K specifications,
Speaker 1: the ones that had been suggested by a consortium of
Speaker 1: trying that was trying to define what four K would
Speaker 1: actually be. Sony made the first panel that actually met
Speaker 1: those specifications. Sony also would found another company in two
Speaker 1: thousand four, Sony Financial, which means yes, Sony does in
Speaker 1: fact have a bank, along with several other financial services.
Speaker 1: So if you look at Sony the company, the big company,
Speaker 1: and you look at the different businesses that Sony is in,
Speaker 1: they can be divided up into specific disciplines or divisions.
Speaker 1: You've got financial, you've got music, you've got movies and TV,
Speaker 1: and you've got electronics. So you've got a couple of
Speaker 1: different ones. In entertainment. Actually you could argue entertainment is
Speaker 1: music and movies together. And maybe instead of saying music
Speaker 1: and movies, say entertainment. And then maybe Sony computers like
Speaker 1: our computer games video games. So you've got video games, movies,
Speaker 1: and music. You've got electronics, and you've got this financial branch. Big,
Speaker 1: big divisions within Sony, each one big enough to be
Speaker 1: its own company with its own subsidiaries. In two thousand five,
Speaker 1: Sony would acquire MGM. As I mentioned earlier. One other
Speaker 1: major event from that year, in two thousand five, Sony
Speaker 1: would name Sir Howard Stringer CEO. Now he was the
Speaker 1: first foreigner to run a major Japanese electronics firm. They
Speaker 1: very unusual. Normally, Japanese businesses end up electing Japanese leaders
Speaker 1: to be to take over these big positions for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: There are linguistic barriers and cultural barriers. It's just very
Speaker 1: different ways of doing business in Japan versus in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. In fact, Sir Stringer ran into
Speaker 1: or Sir Howard, I should say, you say sir and
Speaker 1: then the first name. Sir Howard ran into this during
Speaker 1: his tenure as CEO. He ran into these these barriers
Speaker 1: between the way Westerners do business in the way um
Speaker 1: Japanese business owners do business, and it caused some friction.
Speaker 1: Sir Howard also focused very heavily on the entertainment side
Speaker 1: of Sony, and it's not a big surprise. He had
Speaker 1: previously been president of CBS Incorporated, and before that he
Speaker 1: had worked on various CBS properties, so he came from
Speaker 1: that background. It was not a huge surprise that he
Speaker 1: would really focus on the entertainment side. And this was
Speaker 1: the era of Sony that saw things like the Spider
Speaker 1: Man franchise launch again that that would be the um
Speaker 1: Sam Rainy Spider Man movies in two thousand seven, Sony
Speaker 1: would move its headquarters to a new building in Japan
Speaker 1: called Sony City, at least that's what's nicknamed. And the
Speaker 1: company also released the first oh Led television in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. In two thousand nine, Sony would develop an
Speaker 1: authentication technology that maps the veins in your finger. It's
Speaker 1: called Mofira m O F I R A, And that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's not just it's not reading your fingerprint.
Speaker 1: It actually looks for how the veins in your finger,
Speaker 1: how how they are aligned inside your finger that's unique
Speaker 1: to you. So using a little near and for red,
Speaker 1: you can look into a person's skin and see that
Speaker 1: network of veins. And since it's a unique identified to
Speaker 1: the individual, you can use it for authentication. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Also in two thousand nine, Sony would unveil a new
Speaker 1: slogan for the company called make Believe, Make Period Believe
Speaker 1: Period In Sony would open up the three D Technology Center. Now,
Speaker 1: Sony was just one of several companies that were really
Speaker 1: pushing for three D television to become the next big,
Speaker 1: definitive step in home televisions, and most consumers, like I said,
Speaker 1: resisted that trend. Here's the reason why television companies keep
Speaker 1: doing this kind of thing. You know, you might think,
Speaker 1: all right, well, first we got widescreen TVs and h
Speaker 1: D t vs, then we got flat panel TVs, and
Speaker 1: then after that, uh, you know, once we got the
Speaker 1: h D t vs, we started to get things like
Speaker 1: three D television, even thinner television. Then we went two
Speaker 1: K and four K and some prototype eight KSE sets
Speaker 1: as well as curved TVs, and now we're talking about
Speaker 1: high dynamic range Television's the reason you see these trends
Speaker 1: is that companies want to sell TVs, but TVs are
Speaker 1: tough to sell, right. You know, most of us don't
Speaker 1: buy a television and then the next year say, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a newer model with more features. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go buy a new TV. Because they're really expensive. Most
Speaker 1: of us can't afford to just keep upgrading our TVs
Speaker 1: regularly every couple of years. It's one of those purchases
Speaker 1: that you buy and then you pretty much use it
Speaker 1: until either it stops working or you're just like, no,
Speaker 1: it's really need a new TV. So companies keep coming
Speaker 1: out with these new technologies as an incentive to get
Speaker 1: people to go out and buy new televisions, I mean
Speaker 1: other otherwise you don't have a business. But it has
Speaker 1: been tough going for three D television's. I know a
Speaker 1: few people who have said that they like them. I
Speaker 1: don't know any personally. None of my friends, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, actively use a three D television. Some
Speaker 1: of them might own three D capable TVs. Um There's
Speaker 1: one friend I have. She might actually have a three
Speaker 1: D television that she uses as a three D TV
Speaker 1: because she's kind of a techno geek on a level
Speaker 1: that is admirable, and she has a job where she
Speaker 1: can afford that kind of stuff. She's awesome. But I
Speaker 1: have not actually asked her if she has a three
Speaker 1: D television or uses her three D TV if she
Speaker 1: does have one. So yeah, most of the folks I
Speaker 1: know they didn't like the idea of a three D
Speaker 1: television for multiple reasons, one of the big ones being
Speaker 1: they didn't want to have to wear a special pair
Speaker 1: of glasses just to watch their television, not in three
Speaker 1: D mode anyway, because it meant that you had to
Speaker 1: have an extra piece of equipment. That's another one that
Speaker 1: you can misplace. It makes it harder to like you
Speaker 1: have to track down where your your glasses are. If
Speaker 1: their active glasses instead of passive, you have to charge them.
Speaker 1: It's just a level of involvement that will lot of
Speaker 1: television viewers just don't want. They would rather have the
Speaker 1: technology built into the television in such a way where
Speaker 1: you don't need an extra device or peripheral in order
Speaker 1: to enjoy it. And there are other reasons as well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. But anyway, three D tele Technology Center probably
Speaker 1: not seeing the success of some of the other divisions.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have some involvement with PSBR, which launched this year,
Speaker 1: in which case that could end up being a success.
Speaker 1: It's a little early to say right now. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, Sony also introduced a new cyber shot camera,
Speaker 1: this time according to Sony, So the first cybershot camera
Speaker 1: was all one word in Sony's literature. This is actual
Speaker 1: Sony literature I used for these notes. So the original
Speaker 1: still camera cybershot is one word. The version on their
Speaker 1: materials they have cybershot hyphenated. I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: this Cybershot was the world's first digital still camera capable
Speaker 1: of recording full HD progressive video. That's kind of cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: Also around this time. Soon, he began developing wireless communications
Speaker 1: technologies to allow various electronics to communicate at high speeds
Speaker 1: with each other. The goal here would be to cut
Speaker 1: down on cables. You know, have wireless transmission of data
Speaker 1: between your various components so that you don't have to
Speaker 1: have cables connecting them. In other words, imagine that you
Speaker 1: have a Blu Ray player that connects wirelessly to your
Speaker 1: television and so you don't have to hook the Blu
Speaker 1: Ray player up to the TV with a physical cable.
Speaker 1: It just beams the movie at a very high data
Speaker 1: throughput rate to the television that can then display it
Speaker 1: at Blu Ray resolutions. That's what they were really working
Speaker 1: on at that point, and I've seen some examples of
Speaker 1: HD versions of that. It gets tricky though, because you
Speaker 1: have to deal with interference and just you know, trying
Speaker 1: to get that much data through uh, you know, your
Speaker 1: wireless network, even if it's a wireless network just between
Speaker 1: two components can be a real pain in the butt.
Speaker 1: Also in it was a big year for Sony. They
Speaker 1: introduced the first Internet TV using Google TV or Android TV,
Speaker 1: and Sony would introduce an e book reader that year,
Speaker 1: but the e book reader didn't do so well. The
Speaker 1: Sony E book reader was one of the big competitors
Speaker 1: to the Amazon Kindle. When the Kindle came out, it
Speaker 1: was really kind of down to the e book and
Speaker 1: the Kindle, and we know who won that one. Kindle
Speaker 1: won that one. In fact, Sony discontinued the production of
Speaker 1: the book readers in though the company would continue to
Speaker 1: sell the units that they had in stock, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't make any more of them. They were done. It
Speaker 1: was clear that they weren't going to be able to
Speaker 1: compete in that space. In Katsuo Harai was promoted to CEO.
Speaker 1: He replaced Sir Howard Stringer, and Harai attempted to reunify
Speaker 1: Sony strategies and get the penning on more stable ground.
Speaker 1: The previous two decades had been pretty volatile for Sony financially.
Speaker 1: They had had very variable results year over year, so
Speaker 1: they're trying to get things to settle down. In fourteen,
Speaker 1: Sony would sell off its bio PC division. It was
Speaker 1: a big, big news for Sony to get out of
Speaker 1: that space, and they also in fourteen spun off its
Speaker 1: TV division into its own corporation. So again it was
Speaker 1: kind of an idea of of let's let the TV
Speaker 1: division be its own thing where it's not worried about
Speaker 1: what the rest of the company is doing. They can
Speaker 1: focus on creating the best television sets with the newest innovations,
Speaker 1: unhindered by the rest of the company. That was the
Speaker 1: philosophy behind it. As for a vio PC, I assume
Speaker 1: it was just one of those things where it was
Speaker 1: a division that the company just felt didn't fit into
Speaker 1: the new vision of what Sony would be all about.
Speaker 1: Now we get up to twenty sixteen. This year the
Speaker 1: year I'm recording this. If you're listening to this, after
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Hello from the past. In twenty sixteen, PlayStation
Speaker 1: would release the ps VR, that's the virtual reality system
Speaker 1: for the PlayStation, and so it entered into the competitive
Speaker 1: virtual reality field. Incredibly competitive right now, because you've got
Speaker 1: big names like the Oculus Rift and the HTC five
Speaker 1: that have been trying to make VR a consumer reality
Speaker 1: for several months before the PSVR came out. Uh just
Speaker 1: before I came in to record this section, Sony announced
Speaker 1: that it was selling off its battery business, as well
Speaker 1: as readjusting its profit estimate for twenty sixteen, adjusting it
Speaker 1: downward for the fiscal year. So at this point, Sony
Speaker 1: is still uh looking at a two point six billion
Speaker 1: dollar profit at the end of the year, but originally
Speaker 1: they were looking at closer to three billion. So it's
Speaker 1: been it's been a rough year for Sony in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen in the sense that they're not performing as well
Speaker 1: as they had hope. They're still making a profit. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're losing money in twenty sixteen, but they're
Speaker 1: not doing as well as they had hoped originally. The
Speaker 1: p s VR is one of their strategies that they're
Speaker 1: really hoping will help carry the company forward this uh,
Speaker 1: you know, really investing in the video game and entertainment
Speaker 1: aspects that Sony is involved in. And PSVR has a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance of doing really well because when you
Speaker 1: think about it, the PlayStation VR depends upon the PS four,
Speaker 1: of which there are millions out there already. If you
Speaker 1: want to get a VR headset like the Oculus Rift
Speaker 1: or the HTC five, you need a PC capable of
Speaker 1: running VR programs at a fast enough frame rate and
Speaker 1: high enough resolution so that you get the experience you want.
Speaker 1: That can be pretty expensive. I mean the headsets alone
Speaker 1: are several hundred dollars, and then the PC you need
Speaker 1: to run the headsets maybe anywhere from eight dollars on up.
Speaker 1: So when you combine the two, you could be looking
Speaker 1: at between fift hundred and two thousand dollars just to
Speaker 1: run VR using these headsets. If you already own a
Speaker 1: PS four, the only thing you have to invest in
Speaker 1: is the PSVR, which is still several hundred dollars. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's super cheap, but it's less money than
Speaker 1: buying an all news system and an all new headset.
Speaker 1: If it can run your existing system, then you can
Speaker 1: end up at least not spending extra money. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: if you want to use the full set up, you
Speaker 1: also have to have a Sony eye camera and the
Speaker 1: Sony move controllers, which you may have to purchase if
Speaker 1: you didn't buy a bundle that had those in them,
Speaker 1: and you'll have to buy those as well to get
Speaker 1: the full PSVR experience. Not every game uses those. Some
Speaker 1: of the games used just a regular controller and they
Speaker 1: don't use the eye camera or the motion controllers at all,
Speaker 1: but some of them do use those motion controllers. Um
Speaker 1: I've heard varying things about the ps VR. I've heard
Speaker 1: that it's the lightest headset out of all the VR
Speaker 1: headsets out there, so it's the most comfortable to wear
Speaker 1: for the longest amount of time, but the resolution is
Speaker 1: lower and that the motion tracking of the eye camera
Speaker 1: leaves a lot to be desired, so you have some
Speaker 1: performance issues with them. I don't know that firsthand because
Speaker 1: I haven't tried it, but that's just what I've read
Speaker 1: and heard on various podcasts. So uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you've had experience with the PSVR, you should let
Speaker 1: me know what it was like, if you loved it,
Speaker 1: if it was great. I would love to hear that,
Speaker 1: because I'm only hearing one side so far. I know
Speaker 1: some people really love it, but that's not the the
Speaker 1: not the people who have been doing the podcast I've
Speaker 1: been listening to um. But it's interesting to see a
Speaker 1: big company get involved like that, and maybe that will
Speaker 1: end up creating the virtual reality experience that ends up
Speaker 1: being the killer app, because right now I don't think
Speaker 1: VR has had that. So that's it. That's that brings
Speaker 1: us up to speed on the Sony story, And like
Speaker 1: I said, it's huge. It's sprawls. There's so much more
Speaker 1: we can talk about. We can talk so much more
Speaker 1: about Sony music, or Sony pictures or Sony Interactive entertainment.
Speaker 1: And again, maybe one day we will, but that depends
Speaker 1: largely on you, the audience. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: more about any of those in the future, don't worry.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do them immediately after this one.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cover totally different topics so that we can,
Speaker 1: you know, cover all stuff tech, not just one company.
Speaker 1: But if you ever want to hear more about those
Speaker 1: topics in particular, let me know, or if there's any
Speaker 1: other technology topic you would like me to cover, let
Speaker 1: me know. You can email me The email addresses tech
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: get in touch with me on social media. I am
Speaker 1: on Facebook and I'm on Twitter, and I have the
Speaker 1: handle text Stuff h SW. That's tech Stuff hs W
Speaker 1: at both of those. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with me, you could do so there. And I
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you, and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: Com