Known as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo when first founded in 1946, the company we now know (and occasionally even love) as Sony, or more appropriately, Sony Group Corporation, has come a very long way, indeed. Not even the costly efforts of some of its top executives to torch money in the name of live service can keep the firm down; it seems the PlayStation platform holder just can't stop winning.
What began as a tiny electronics shop with eight employees, part of the nationwide economic rebuilding effort after World War II, has risen to become Japan's second-largest company (by market cap), largely thanks to the PlayStation division of the company, far and away its most profitable.
With a market cap (total value of a company's shares of stock) of USD $149.32 billion, Sony has entered the top three Japanese firms, surpassing automobile manufacturer Mitsubishi's $146.46 billion. However, it's still far behind Japan's biggest company (also a car maker), Toyota, at $231.69 billion.
It's still more news that seemingly contradicts conventional gamer wisdom, namely that the market for video game consoles is dying (it's not). Still, we're glad that Sony jumped into video games, or our history (and that of many millions of others) might have been very different.
Please enjoy the below image of Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo's first consumer product, an electric rice cooker released in the late 1940s:
Can you believe how far Sony has come since its humble post-WWII beginnings? Let us know in the comments section below.
Comments 31
The turnaround throughout Push Square's lifespan has been impressive. When I started the site, Sony was in an absolutely horrendous position. They were bleeding money all over the place (not just PS3) and seemed to have no direction or purpose at all.
Kaz Hirai obviously fixed PS3 and then went on to start the process of turning the company around.
As this article shows, they're now in a very, very strong position again. Really impressive turnaround which started mostly with Hirai as CEO.
He'll be remembered for the memes, but he was a really impressive CEO.
@get2sammyb When i was a kid the only TV’s my dad would buy were Sony. I had a Sony Walkman and course PS1-PS5. I always like Sony products. I have a LG 55 inch Oled C3 currently cause i wanted 4 HDMI 2.1 slots and VRR. But my next TV will likely be a Sony if they add 4 HDMI 2.1 ports. The Sony A95 is still the best tv on the market and it’s a 2023 model. Happy to hear they are doing well even tho they lost a lot of market share in the TV space and headphone space. Not to mention they had to leave the Viao PC space, cause they were to stubborn on their pricing. That was the issue with Sony they would have the so called Sony Tax on all their products and the consumers didn’t see enough difference for the price and went to Samsung TV’s and other products. So you are right they indeed bleed a lot of money and had to make cuts to products and adjustments. Happy to see it is paying off and they are highly profitable again.
Also a big thanks to you and your team for starting this site and keeping it going and evolving all these years.sure some of us come here to complain from time to time. I for one don’t always love what Sony is doing or charging for PS features and games. But we all come here cause this is the best site on the internet for gaming and i say the same for Pure Xbox. Happy to be a part of it and i come to both sites multiple times a day everyday! Thanks so much!
@HonestHick Thanks for reading!
@get2sammyb You know it is very funny but the main reason my dad even got the Playstation 1 despite being a mostly nintendo man was because Sony meant quality. Even our tvs for the longest time were Sony. Especially in India, Sony were really quick to see it as a growing market and invested early.
@HonestHick The Headphones are actually picking up steam again. The horrible naming aside, they're the best in the consumer market right now with the WXM5's. The tvs are great quality but Samsung and LG are just way cheaper but Samsung audio quality is terrible.
Tbh isn’t it more to do with other companies in Japan going backwards
"However, it's still far behind Japan's biggest company (also a car maker), Toyota, at $231.69 billion."
Wait, Japan biggest company isn't Nintendo?
@PuppetMaster come see me when Nintendo has its own city lmao
Sony need to make a car...and have the Sony logo on it. Not the strange name they have on their concept car.
@breakneck i use the Apple AirPods and AirPods Max. Well cause i am an Apple fanatic. Bought my first Mac 17 years ago and haven’t looked back. Sure my job gives me a windows Pc i have to work on, but i hate the experience. Yeah Samsung audio does nothing for me either. Sony would be my second choice for headphones if apple didn’t make the Max. Yeah the pricing on the Sony TV’s are a little more than they need to be, but remember TV’s much like consoles have razor thin profit margins. It’s about selling massive amounts. They aren’t a high margin product. Samsung just has so many models at all price points, as do LG and TCL etc etc. thats why Sony uses Google TV as its user interface. They collect your data and sell it and make more money from that then selling you the actual tv. Overall the PS business is doing well and i don’t see that changing anytime soon. Especially with GTA 6 coming out. I plan to sell my PS5 base model and upgrade to a Pro for that game alone.
@HonestHick Yeah my big regret was getting a samsung tv. The image quality great but they basically force you into buying a sound bar because the speakers are abysmal.
Also, as a person who fell off apple and went to Android and Windows? I don't regret Android but I hate Windows 11 with a vengeance. AWFUL!
@breakneck yeah i dislike Windows a lot. Again i have to use it for work. But as soon as i log off i am back to all Apple products in the house. Android is ok, if I had to have an Android i would likely get the Pixel from Google. Most TV’s today suck on sound, they are so thin that the speakers are small and on the back of the tv. So a soundbar is really needed. But yeah Samsung does have good picture quality, the S95D is stunning. But again Sony has the better processors in their high end TV’s.
@PuppetMaster It was reported on Nintendolife in February 2024 that Nintendo was the richest company in Japan, with a cash equivalent value of $11.44 billion and zero debt. This may be why you assumed they were also the biggest. However, its annual turnover is considerably lower than that of the other top companies.
Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/02/nintendo-is-currently-the-richest-company-in-japan
It's crazy how much there making when most believe this gen kinda sucks
Sony in some shape or form have always been with me throughout my life.
Walkman, alarm clock, TVS, dvd players, sound systems, sound bars and of course game consoles.
I think in my various homes over time and that is many decades, there has always been something Sony.
But can the rice cooker play Doom?
@PuppetMaster As @Jalex_64 said these are different metrics.
Nintendo has a lot of cash stockpiled and no debt (which is quite rare in the business world, where SOME debt is usually seen as a sensible thing to strategically finance their plans... it's complex).
Sony have a much higher value by market capitalisation (i.e. what all their stock is worth) but have a lot of debt, around $31bn USD.
Nintendo's market cap is around 58% of Sony's. ($89bn vs £153bn)
Both are strong in different ways.
@HonestHick just fyi, most Sony TVs other than their cheapest use a technology where they resonate the entire screen size to produce sound in addition to the embedded speakers. For most people, that equates to good sound without the need for a soundbar - Indeed, I gave away my pretty decent soundbar just last year as my current Sony TV simply doesn't need it. I'm pretty picky (I use a £25k hifi for example), so I don't do that lightly!
Yeah they are a bit pricey, but I usually buy a 3.5k set the year after release, as they are releasing a newer model, and pick it up at under 1.5k. I tend to always buy Sony, but I also have an LG oled in the room for the second ps5.
@Drago201
Permanently online whingers on social media think it sucks, but I'd guess that most ordinary gamers are more than happy - witness PS5's incredible sales figures. Most people don't know/don't care about, say, the implosion of Sony's live service strategy or lack of first party games that social media nerds obsess about, they're just happy to get on with playing the 100s of games that are available (first, second or third party).
@Drago201 is it most o a loud minority online, though?
Why the lame Jim Ryan meme photo? That guy has not only been fired but he was only leading Playstation and he was responsible for the live services mess PS has been in.
@JayJ If you think Ryan was fired for consistently making the profits that SIE were posting than you are very much showing your own bias there. If anything they would have wanted him to stay.
Only found out recently they still make Sony walkmans, and they're outrageously expensive items
@Titntin yeah I’m aware of the sound tech in the Sony’s but i prefer a sound system with my main TV’s for better sound. Also Samsung has a feature of using the TV’s speaker along with a Samsung soundbar for even more sound. It’s a nice added touch to the over all performance. But i am not a Samsung guy. I would like a A90K from Sony. It’s the smaller 42 inch Oled. I would like to sit super close to that for the competitive games i like to play. Then the 55 is good for single player stuff. 😊
@themightyant @Jalex_64 I see thanks for the info
@HonestHick lol. I was suggesting that if you heard both in place and switched between the two set up at exactly the same volume, you would struggle to point out which were which 😄 I did this with friend recently and he couldn't believe the sound out of the telly...
Not gonna happen, so we will never know....unless your ever visiting Brixham UK, in which case hit me up for a coffee or beer.
Have a good one!
@Titntin thats cool, i will have to look into that more. I do love good audio. Heck yeah if i am ever there i would love to try a beer with you. That would be so cool. Have a great day buddy. Thanks for the info. I like to learn new things to try 😊
I used to swear by Sony products, but now, I actively look for alternates (excluding PlayStation obvs). Every one of my last 3 Sony TVs has developed a fault and I recently changed over to a multi award winning Hisense TV which blows the actual sh*t out of my previous Sony TV. And on top of everything, Sony is one of the most anti consumer companies. Other than PlayStation, I don't touch Sony products.
Only Sony product I have had to change from is their mobiles. I can't use non contracts on the new models and they aren't widely sold so I had to switch to Google Pixel.
But I did have the Walkman for 10 years then an E series and a Z1 Compact.
Playstation saved Sony.
@Lowdefal Ryan was a garbage CEO regardless. PS is better off that he's now gone.
@Lowdefal Ryan was clearly given a golden parachute and asked to leave politely. His strategy is what led to games like Concord after all, and last I checked they lost a lot of money on that and other cancelled live service projects.
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