Sony Closing (Stopping) TV Production by Mid 2016? (Rumour)

[Shortbread]

Ok, I know this isn't the best area to put this, but I couldn't really figure out the best forum area... especially one with the most traffic. Anyhow, I was at ABC Warehouse and Best Buy today, looking for a new 4K TV. I was looking at the new Sony XBR 2015 line, and the sales rep mentioned that Sony will be ending their TV business by mid next year. I thought he was mistaken or misread something... however, the same thing was repeated over at Best Buy. Is there any truth to this? :|

 

[London Geezer]

What a load of bollocks.

 

[MrFox]

Total bullcrap.

 

[DrJay24]

Sales rep... nuff said.

 

[Shortbread]

That's fine guy's... but why would two different retailers (sales reps) even mention it? Hate Sony season? Which seems odd, if that's the answer.

 

[London Geezer]

Cause sales reps.

 

[Shortbread]

Ok. I guess...

Anyhow, I picked up this beauty today.

 

[MrFox]

Nice!

I hope the salesman didn't make you buy a monster cable to go with it.

 

[Nesh]

What kind of jobs do you guys have? Thats one expensive mother fucker

 

[orangpelupa]

lol same happen with me when im exploring home theaters. Different stores said sony is exiting business. Maybe they are burned with the previous Sony VAIO exiting PC market?

its great for consumer though. They make fire sale for 2 months

 

[Pixel]

Ive worked in electronics sales. There are sometimes higher commissions for certain brands, and there are regularly special promotions a company may offer in partnership with your retailer to offer you higher commission for a particular brand. For example for a week or two you may get 4% commission instead of 3% for selling that particular brand. Besides sales tactics what we learn, we learn nothing in terms of industry insider info and technical info is nothing more than you'd get off their website or read off a brochure. The store itself may get a bigger cut during that promotion as well. So there are sometimes "off the books" strategies that get passed around on how to steer people to those tvs.

Sony may offer the lowest commission or no commission compared to other brands and the sales people may for that reason may want to steer you to tvs they want to sell. Since consumer reports gives decent reviews for Sony tvs, and unsubstantiated fear about warrantee and service issues will would be really sneaky to fool uninformed customers.

 

[zed]

Wait so after years of losing money on TV's, this year when the TV division finally posts a $167 million profit it decides nah we've had enuf

 

[Shortbread]

I hope the salesman didn't make you buy a monster cable to go with it.

Nope. I got three (3) AR HDMI cables for free... well, free after paying for the monster.

What kind of jobs do you guys have? That's one expensive mother fucker

Video stuff...

They knocked off $600, plus taxes. So, 5K on the nose...

Edit: If guy's need my sales rep, just inbox me.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Now that the division is better than ever!.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Aren't Sony stopping low/mid range sets or something? Is that the token truth behind this remark?

 

[London Geezer]

Ok. I guess...

Anyhow, I picked up this beauty today.

I'm sure you could have stretched your budget a little for a 4k OLED screen

 

[Deleted member 86764]

80" 4k makes my 40" 1080p set feel very inadequate. I picked up a screen that supposedly has the fastest response times (I'm an occasional COD player). I'm tempted with a 4k set, but I'd need to have HDMI 2.0 and some kind of content to watch on it.

 

[MrFox]

Aren't Sony stopping low/mid range sets or something? Is that the token truth behind this remark?

Ah yes. They did say they'd drop the unprofitable models because they can't compete with China on the low-end. All their high-end stuff is "made in Japan" and it's ironically the profitable ones. They had Quantum Dot for two years until LG and Samsung could keep up. But OLED is the future of high-end and they passed, I have no idea what the idea is... Some of their spinoff and joint ventures are getting a nice assistance from the Japanese government and banks with public funds, etc... I guess they want to keep the jobs in japan.

If they sells only high-end, they would turn to boutique shops with price protection instead of allowing big stores to sell it. It's practically the norm in the high-end market. So supposing that's the case, maybe Best Buy and all big stores received a note about all SKUs being dropped next year.

Or... they did say that the TV spinoff was open to merging and joint ventures with panasonic and others, so that would require a rebranding, and would look like "closing" from the outside.

 

[London Geezer]

If Panasonic is back on OLED (with LG screens) then it wouldn't take much for Sony to jump in again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Or... they did say that the TV spinoff was open to merging and joint ventures with panasonic and others, so that would require a rebranding...

Is there really the possibility of a new brand of TV and the entrenched Sony and Panasonic being dropped? I can't imagine so. The TV heritage makes these brands substantial, and starting again from scratch would be very costly for no clear gain IMO. I'm more inclined to go with your first idea of only selling high end to specialist chains, and larger stores being told the Sony is not going to sell any more TVs (to them).