I would say that Sony is probably the most advanced electronics company in the world. Why? Because they are able to conceal the "Sony Timer" within most of their products and no matter how many of their products you take apart, you just would not be able to find out how this ingenious piece of technology works.
So what on earth am I on about? Well the Sony Timer enables Sony's products to conveniently time out either when the warranty runs out or when Sony brings out a new line of that product. Now this is probably not common knowledge - a search for "Sony Timer" in English a while ago brought up no results - but have a look now on
Google and
Yahoo! (you get more useful results for this on Yahoo)You will start to realize the scary truth when you do a search for "Sony Timer" in Japanese on
Google - 84,000 results! You can even find a full explanation of Sony timer in Wikipedia in
Japanese and
English.
Hatena's site explains how...
- Sony don't 'trigger' the timer in first batches of products as the media will be reviewing the first lot.
- All industrial Sony equipment ships with Sony Timer and will trigger sooner or later.
- Older Sony lines did not include the Sony Timer device.
My Personal experiences in Japan are...
- I had the first MD player that came out - which timed out to coincide with the release of their new updated MD players.
- I had two Viao laptops. Tried to install a clean OS over the piece of crap that came with them but no dice - either the built in camera or something did not work - both timed out after a year.
- Clie - had two - the black/white one that first came out timed out just after the color one came out - just as Sony planned and being the gullible bafoon I was, I went to get the new color one - which then went and timed out again just after the release of their new bloody line of Clies.
- All PS2 owners I know have not had any trouble so far with their game machine but then I discovered why - if the PS2 timed out, they would not make money on the software for the machine - and besides, Sony only releases a new game machine every few years. I bet you though that PS2 machines will start to time out near the launch of PS3. But the PS2 memory card *does* time out - just like mine did (Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid save data all gone gone GONE!)
No body knows how the timer works but it could be triggered by some sort of electro magnetic pulse beamed from other Sony appliances nearby. Or it could be that Sony employees have an electro magnetic pulse race unit implanted in their left knee - poor employees not knowing that the unit is emitting a nano type pulse wave thing destroying electrical equipment everywhere.
I don't think the timer is set at time of production - there must be a trigger sent by those pulses (boring word is "radio signal"). This would make more sense as it would allow Sony to control inventory - if they manufactured too much of something then they could just zap the previous models and the gullible prat would go out and buy the new one (just like I did with the Clie - Danny the Prat).
This is how Sony really make their money. Some people would pay Sony to fix the product but in most cases people would rather pay money to go for the cooler sexier model.
OK, timer news aside, Below is more evidence of why Sony has a terrible reputation in Japan.
Sometimes, Sony would release a batch of products that are faulty - meaning that Sony would have to pay for the product to be fixed during the warranty period - in this case, it is cheaper for Sony to recall the product and replace it for free. We all know that there is little margin to be made on electrical stuff - Sony would just be loosing money repairing the unit for free.
A search on Google for the words "
Sony free replacement" (in Japanese) brings up 64,000 results - many of them press releases from Sony.
But wait! there is more (more?!) and you are going to love this one.
When the PSP first came out in Japan, the unit had a ton of faults like...
- UMD flying out halfway though a game
- Bits of string in the display
- Dead pixels
- The square button remains depressed - does not pop back to original position! (what?!)
- Etc!
There are even
sites in japan dedicated to warning us of these PSP faults. But Sony did not bother to recall these units. Instead, the CEO of Sony had the audacity to announce
to the press that these PSP faults are...
"part of the spec."
So there you have it - Sony may have a strong brand name wherever you are but in Japan, Sony has a reputation of being a stinking vat of steaming churning (with carrots and corn ) cow crap. Be warned or be 'timed' !
Let us know about your Sony Timer experience by leaving a message.
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