Sony's Mobile Business Is Shrinking Out of Existence (theverge.com) 88
The latest earnings report from Sony indicates the company's already tiny smartphone business has shrunk by almost half. "In the quarter ending in July 2018, Sony managed to sell only 2 million mobile devices, down 1.4 million from the same period in the proceeding year," reports The Verge. From the report: In its 2017 accounting year, Sony sold 13.5 million phones, and back in April its modest estimate for 2018 was 10 million, but now that's been revised down to 9 million. Anticipating it will make only $5.49 billion of mobile sales for the entire fiscal 2018, Sony is now in a close contest with HTC for the title of being the least relevant global Android device vendor. At least BlackBerry has its promise of uniquely secure phones and keyboards with actual, physical buttons on them. Sony's signature mobile feature in recent times has been an insistence on shipping massive bezels for way too long. It's important to note that while Sony's mobile business is hurting, Sony as a whole is in good financial health.
simple make a playstation phone/app (Score:3, Interesting)
play to their strengths...
They just need to make a app/phone that can play old playstation games and link via bluetooth as a controller for the PS4
a standard screen (just HD for battery life) a HUGE battery combined with a awesome camera and they would have a winner
having google playstore then a seperate app for playstation games would be a killer
they tried previously but had no specific games/emulator so it became sidelined... Sony Ericsson Xperia Play lost out to the vita... kill the Vita and do a app/store
Re:simple make a playstation phone/app (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony has never been good at playing to their strengths, despite having numerous strengths. I don't expect this to suddenly change.
Re:simple make a playstation phone/app (Score:4, Informative)
they tried previously but had no specific games/emulator so it became sidelined...
You have this 100% wrong. I have a SEMC Xperia Play and they had specific games/emulator. Specifically, they had a playstation emulator. Most (but not all) Playstation games will work with it, and there is a java-based tool for prepping them for the phone. They sold something like eight different games for the device, which you had to buy all over again for your phone even if you already had them for your Playstation, which is the actual reason the device failed in the marketplace.
100% right (Score:2)
They had a playstation emulator with no exclusives i.e. no specific games
They had no specific playstation emulator that emulated ps1 or ps2
I had a Xperia Play given to me by google and the hardware was great however the software was terrible.
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That's not what the word specific means.
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I suspect the problem is with Sony internal politics, SEMC do not work so closely with the playstation division, each division must make profits and so the customer ends up paying for this (or in this case just going to their competitors).
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I suspect the problem is with Sony internal politics, SEMC do not work so closely with the playstation division, each division must make profits
Yeah, but it still boggles the mind that it makes more sense to SCE[AJ] to make nothing by not selling old Playstation games than to make something by charging a small amount for them to be sold on a SEMC platform — especially since most of them will work without modification, and buying it for XPlay didn't let you run it on any other platform legally. It did include the full ISO image, but it's not like those were hard to come by through "other" means at the time, so that's irrelevant in my book.
Re:simple make a playstation phone/app (Score:4, Funny)
Their strengths do revovle around making an unworkable and expensive walled garden, right??
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Sony phones have been able to remote screen your PS4 for _years_. Clip on a controller.
They have the phone with the world's best phone camera in it.
What they don't have is any American carrier partners.
Massive bezels (Score:1)
The fetishes of smartphone reviewers never made sense to me.
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Bribes from Apple explain a lot.
As a member of a former Sony buying family, I can say with confidence - the problem is lack of bug fixes to the software. Massive show-stopping feature omissions which are never fixed is what drove us away.
We do not care about bezels, notches, thinness etc. But we wont buy phones without:
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Sony were great once. They had a good range of VIAO laptop that were sought after in the 2000's here in the uk
VAIO laptops were flimsy AF and their driver support was second to everyone. They were garbage hardware with garbage support. What about that was popular in the UK?
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As a member of a former Sony buying family, I can say with confidence - the problem is lack of bug fixes to the software. Massive show-stopping feature omissions which are never fixed is what drove us away.
I have an Xperia X, and in general I like it. Sony has even been pretty good about pushing out updates. But I agree with you, there seem to be more bugs than I'd like, and one reason I find myself loading the update as soon as they land is I hope that it'll fix my laggy camera app or stop Waze from crashing or fix the bluetooth connection or whatever the issue de jour is.
I'll be getting a new phone soon, and it probably won't be a Sony.
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Xperia XZs (and successors) has all that except the removable battery, of course it's 'removable', everything is, just not easy.
Also has the best phone camera available and ruggedized.
They are rooted. Sony doesn't officially support it, but they haven't effectively locked them down.
Good. (Score:3)
I had a SEMC Xperia Play. Still have it, in fact. Sony promised that all Xperia devices shipping at that time would get ICS. Then they released ICS roms for literally every device BUT the Play. They claimed it would be too hard to do. Well, people on XDA-Developers got it working, more or less. Unfortunately, IIRC the Playstation emulator which was the primary purpose behind the phone only works on Gingerbread, although XDA-Devs may have solved that problem as well by now. The touch pad game controller support was also a little wonky.
Since Sony has demonstrated that they are liars, I will not buy any more devices from them, and they cannot stop selling them soon enough for me.
problem was with android... (Score:2)
Android created this problem and now has a solution...
Android 8.0 re-architected the Android OS framework (in a project known as Treble) to make it easier, faster, and less costly for manufacturers to update devices to a new version of Android. In this new architecture, the HAL interface definition language (HIDL, pronounced "hide-l") specifies the interface between a HAL and its users, enabling the Android framework to be replaced without rebuilding the HALs.
If they used Treble this problem would go away..
Re: Good. (Score:1)
Large firms are made of many smaller units that do not necessarily talk to each other effectively. Thus an instance of bad behaviour may reflect one unit, not corporate policy as a whole. In the case of PS and phone integration, that's a classic cross unit failure.
In other companies you see different business units creating overlapping products, or corporate buying in a company to provide a product, not realising that they already have one.
In essence, don't ascribe overarching bad intentions when it might b
What a disappointment (Score:5, Insightful)
The Xperia Compact phones are the only decent size phones with decent specs. Larger phones are a colossal pain since dealing with the extra weight and size is not worth it when I don't use the phone to consume media, browse the web much (maybe when I am not right near a computer, but that is it), or spend the day on social media apps. In decreasing order of importance, I need a phone that: makes phone calls, lets me text, acts as a hotspot, has GPS/maps for navigation, and a browser for the occasional quick search on the go. I don't need a Galaxy whatever or a phone with a ~6.5 inch display for that.
The Xperia Compact phones are a bit overpriced for what you get, but they are otherwise very high quality and nice to use. Every other phone I have seen with a ~4.5 inch display is rubbish (assuming you can even find a current year model, as that is getting to be more difficult), and every other decent phone nowadays is ~5.5 or larger.
I really hope they manage to stick around since they are servicing a part of the market nobody else seems to be interested in servicing.
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I bought an Xperia Z3 for $120 new on eBay recently to use as a flight computer in a glider.
Its a great unit.
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I'm totally with you on the Xperia Compact. It has been a great small phone. It has been getting updates for more than two years beyond the release date, too!
Re:What a disappointment (Score:4, Insightful)
>The Xperia Compact phones are a bit overpriced for what you get, but they are otherwise very high quality and nice to use. Every other phone I have seen with a ~4.5 inch display is rubbish (assuming you can even find a current year model, as that is getting to be more difficult), and every other decent phone nowadays is ~5.5 or larger.
They're already screwing that up. Did you see the current-year's model? Increasing the screen size in a way nobody wants, increasing the weight, and removing the headphone jack.
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Problem appears to be Asian markets, where phones below 5,5" will not sell. And phone companies sell more in China than anywhere else in the world.
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They're already screwing that up. Did you see the current-year's model? Increasing the screen size in a way nobody wants, increasing the weight, and removing the headphone jack.
Also, replacing the flat back that allowed you to use the phone while placed on a table with a bulging back that rolls in every direction, making the phone super-wobbly.
I have an XZ1 Compact, and the hardware is great. It's my fourth Sony, after the W800, P and ZL. But the main reason I probably won't buy Sony again is that they remove existing features in new models.
The W800 could play gapless music, had a replaceable battery, and a camera lens cover. The P didn't.
The P had an RGBI display with much hig
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A bigger screen means a bigger phone. A bigger phone is a bigger battery. Which means longer life.
If you just want to make calls, be a hotspot, and have GPS, get a flipphone. The battery lasts days.
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If you just want to make calls, be a hotspot, and have GPS, get a flipphone. The battery lasts days.
I usually get 5-7 days of battery life before I have to charge. Occasionally it will drop to 2-3 if I am on the road a lot using GPS and/or hotspot continually. I find that the smaller phone does just fine with the smaller batter. Those bigger phones with bigger batteries have to use it all to power the bigger screen.
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Re: What a disappointment (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll never get it - that is a sensible option. The phone industry does not do "sensible".
Re:What a disappointment (Score:4, Interesting)
The Xperia Compact phones are the only decent size phones with decent specs. Larger phones are a colossal pain since dealing with the extra weight and size is not worth it when I don't use the phone to consume media, browse the web much (maybe when I am not right near a computer, but that is it), or spend the day on social media apps. In decreasing order of importance, I need a phone that: makes phone calls, lets me text, acts as a hotspot, has GPS/maps for navigation, and a browser for the occasional quick search on the go. I don't need a Galaxy whatever or a phone with a ~6.5 inch display for that.
The Xperia Compact phones are a bit overpriced for what you get, but they are otherwise very high quality and nice to use. Every other phone I have seen with a ~4.5 inch display is rubbish (assuming you can even find a current year model, as that is getting to be more difficult), and every other decent phone nowadays is ~5.5 or larger.
I really hope they manage to stick around since they are servicing a part of the market nobody else seems to be interested in servicing.
My Xperia has been losing touch sensitivity near the edge of the screen, but one-off anecdotes are hardly a basis on which to judge hardware quality.
But I do agree the compact smartphone market is sorely under served.
If I wanted a tablet I'd buy a tablet, I don't need a giant screen to read webpages or look at a map. I get why the giant phones exist, but I don't see why no one is interested in making compact smartphones.
Re: What a disappointment (Score:1)
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Yes, I completely agree with everything you wrote. Those are precisely the reasons why I have bought two Xperia Compact until now (an X Compact 2 years ago and an XZ2 Compact with SDM845 this year).
While many people seem to like large smartphones and small laptops, I only use large laptops and small smartphones (small enough to fit comfortably in a shirt pocket).
I am always looking for good small smartphones, with up to 5 inch screen size, but I was not able to find any acceptable alternative to Xperia Comp
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Also, i like headphone jacks and bezels on my phone. If Sony sticks with getting rid of those or just shuts down the mobile division entirely i'm going to be in a very unfortunate position when i need to get another phone =/
Try not crippling the camera if rooted (Score:3)
Sony became dead to me as a phone manufacturer when they started permanently crippling the *camera* if you unlock the bootloader. Fuck Sony.
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Re: Try not crippling the camera if rooted (Score:2)
Until VERY recently, it was often the only way to get a top-shelf Android phone capable of doing LTE in the US (esp. VoLTE & transparent wifi calling/sms).
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Their second tier sensors. To get their best sensor you have to buy a sony phone.
Selling 10mil phones is still a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
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hmm (Score:2)
Sony is now in a close contest with HTC for the title of being the least relevant global Android device vendor.
Er, well if you are global you are still kinda relevant, no?
Is that something like "least athletic olympian"?
Damn (Score:2)
features (Score:1)