And Sony heads towards the death spiral!

[evensgrey]

Here's something Sony is going to release in Japan on Thursday:

http://www.sony.jp/sd/products/SR-HXA/

Naturally, the page is in Japanese, but (almost) everything you need to know is right there on the product photo:



Yes, friends, it's a special, high-quality audio microSD card!  The only important thing not on the photo is the price, which is listed in the SonyStore at 18500 yen, which Yahoo!Currency converter says is currently equivalent to $154.64 US.

For comparison, here's a functionally identical device on the US Sony Store, listed at $32.99 US.



When buying digital gear, always remember that with digital, it either is or isn't, there's none of this analog quality stuff.  That $50 HDMI cable I saw yesterday doesn't work any better than the $6 one beside it.

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, but those are AUDIO-QUALITY bits! They're better than regular bits!

You know what this is: it's just like when they sold blank "music" CDs that were functionally no different than ordinary blank CDs, but were an order of magnitude more expensive.

Nothing new here.

[evensgrey]

Was it Sony doing that as well?  I didn't see it, but that doesn't mean anything.

When a company starts using pure marketing hype instead of developing something better than what's already on the market, it's dying.  Which is a shame, since Sony hasn't made a lot of fundamentally new things, but has been really good with making better versions of other people's equipment.

[MrBogosity]

Was it Sony doing that as well?  I didn't see it, but that doesn't mean anything.

A bunch of them were doing it, I don't remember who. Sony was probably one of them.

When a company starts using pure marketing hype instead of developing something better than what's already on the market, it's dying.  Which is a shame, since Sony hasn't made a lot of fundamentally new things, but has been really good with making better versions of other people's equipment.

Their argument is that they're making back money they lost on piracy. At least that's what they said about the CDs.

And actually, Sony is doing a LOT of wonderful things with cameras and the new mirrorless Sony Alpha's are actually displacing Canon and Nikon cameras, and the software they're making for video editing and effects is nothing short of revolutionary.

[tnu]

I'm really hoping Sony doesn't go under. the Playstation TV has proven to be an answer ot many of my woes about mobile gaming exclusives that I REALLY wanted to play.