Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1920 PS Game Console

This is the atmosphere of the chamber of commerce of Tianyin Group is very lively, because everyone knows what kind of rewards will be obtained as an agent of Sony's products in Japan.

In the very early days, Sony was synonymous with high-quality electronic products in China and even the world. In fact, Sony’s real rapid development began in the 8s and 90s. Walkman, Trinitron imaging technology and 8 mm video tapes, which are common industry standards, have brought Sony brilliance for 20 years.

Sony's product line is very wide. In the civilian field alone, there are personal computers, full-channel radios, Walkman players, CD players, high-end audio, PlayStation game consoles... Moreover, Sony has outstanding products in various fields.

Tianyin Group also has a wide range of production lines. At least in China, no other company can compare with it. However, compared with Sony, the gap is huge.

Even many products of Tianyin Group, including the Walkman and CD players produced in the early years, actually borrowed from Sony's product technology, but in terms of technology and industrial level, they have not yet reached the level of Sony, so we say For a long time, the Walkman made by Tianyin Group can be regarded as a simplified version of Sony Walkman.

Therefore, if Duan Yun's Tianyin Group wants to catch up with Sony's product technology, there is still a long way to go. After all, Sony is an old multinational giant that has been established for nearly half a century, and it is also the pride of the Japanese electronics industry. In just a few years, the two companies are not in the same order of magnitude at all.

But that's not to say Sony isn't invincible. In fact, by the late 90s, Sony's electronic products were out of date.

From the perspective of development history, Sony started with electronic products, and it continues to set new records, and is called "Sony of technology" by many people.Perhaps it is not appropriate to say that Sony is facing decline, but compared with Sony in its glory days, Sony, which has been losing money continuously, is facing some difficulties. This difficulty is closely related to the advent of the Internet era.

Some previous reports said that Sony did not have the temperament of the Internet, and that the software and hardware did not combine with each other, which led to losing the limelight in front of Apple.You should know that Sony represents an industrialized traditional hardware company with a huge product line and organizational structure. In this case, it will face huge challenges to turn around and transform into an information-based company.The Internet represents grassroots culture, which is contrary to Sony's own corporate culture. Therefore, when Sony is facing the transformation of the Internet era and needs to discover the underlying needs of users, its response is always slow.

The dispute over portable music formats is an obvious example. Now everyone knows that the Walkman lost to the iPod. Sony was not unaware of the popularity of digital music players, but was too obsessed with its own patented ATRAC format. Although the ATRAC format It is better than MP3 in terms of algorithm, but it is very closed and has poor compatibility, resulting in low market acceptance. However, the MP3 format with better compatibility and easier Internet dissemination and sharing is gradually accepted by everyone. Sony’s It was only when I woke up like a dream and started to enter the MP3 market, but it was too late.

One of Sony's founders, Akio Morita, expressed in an interview in 1987: "Our products are not developed after asking the needs clearly from door to door. We develop products without relying on market research." That's it. Conceit made Sony seem very uncomfortable when it entered the Internet era. Everyone was focusing on user experience, which led to the emergence of products that are more in line with the characteristics of the Internet, such as MP3, tablet computers, and smart phones.And Sony missed all these one by one, and as a result, they could only follow up clumsily and passively.

In fact, we can also see a truth from the history of Sony’s development, that is, choice is greater than hard work. This is the same as being a human being. If the direction is wrong, the upper limit of success will be very different. Easy to walk into a dead end.

In other words, the real decline of Sony began in the Internet age, but at least in the mid-to-late 90s, their products were still very competitive.

Duan Yun can take advantage of the peak period of Sony's development to earn a wave of dividends, and at the same time start a large-scale layout in advance before the arrival of the Internet. In this case, it is still very possible to achieve corner overtaking.

In addition, this time Duan Yun acted as an agent for Sony's products, and received a total of 37 items in the first batch of products, including video game consoles, walkmans, video cameras, full-channel recorders, televisions, and so on.

However, after carefully analyzing the list, Duan Yun found that the products that Sony supplied to Tianyin Group in the early stage were basically electronic products that had been put on the market in the mid-to-late 80s. on this list.

It can be seen from this that you have no intention of selling the best products in China. In fact, it is not only Sony, but also many Japanese companies. Their most advanced and best products are first released in the Japanese domestic market. Products are put into the European and American markets, but the technology has lagged behind, and the products that have experienced a significant decline in profits in Japan and Europe and the United States will be sold to the Chinese market. This has become a consensus within Japanese companies.

This is obviously a discriminatory business strategy, but it can actually reflect the real consumption power of the current global electronics market. Generally speaking, the prices of products using new technologies will be high when they are first put on the market. Only Good sales can only be achieved in developed countries, and when the product technology is gradually falling behind, that is, when the space is getting smaller and smaller, these Japanese companies will sell the products that are about to be eliminated to China, which is completely treating China as a dumping ground for backward products .

However, in his product list, Duan Yun still saw products that caught his eye, including a game console "Play Station" that he played in his student days, which is also known as the PS game console in China.

At the Chicago Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony announced the CD expansion model "Play Station" developed by it, the Nintendo SFC host.The marriage of the two major manufacturers instantly attracted the attention of all the audience present.

It is undeniable that even though Sony was already a world-renowned company at that time, it was just a passer-by in the game circle. Facing Ba Director Tiantang, it was possible to have such an in-depth cooperation. Naturally, there is no need to say more about the humiliation and ups and downs experienced during the period.

The reason why this product can make Duan Yun's eyes shine is that the current domestic consumers have a very large demand for game consoles, which can be seen from the sales of learning machines produced by Tianyin Group at the beginning. The other point is that PS games PS game console is a very classic product. Even in the era of the Internet, many of Sony's main products have fallen into a trough, but the sales volume of PS game consoles has always been very high, and it has gradually become a main product of Sony in the post-era era.

(End of this chapter)