Sony Says Not Leaving U.S. Plasma TV Market
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Sony Corp. (6758.T) on Wednesday said it had no plans to abandon the market for plasma-screen television sets in the United States in the near term, though it did not say specifically what its intentions were internationally.
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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves may have let something slip that American consumers weren't supposed to know: there really is no "price cut" for the PS3.
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Japanese consumer producer Sony Corp. has denied a report it plans to withdraw from the plasma television business but said its priority in flat-panel TVs remains in liquid crystal display (LCD) sets.
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In a broad discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show, U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)&#160;Chairman Kevin Martin on Tuesday confirmed that the deadline for the country&#39;s switch to digital TV next year will not be postponed, explained the rationale behind the requirements for the current 700MHz auction, and gave hints about his thinking regarding various communications megamergers.Interviewed at the show by Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro, Martin said the February 2009 deadline for the digital TV switch is a &quot;hard deadline.&quot; He said a postponement would &quot;dis-incentivize&quot; industry to make the transition.&quot;After all of our efforts we couldn&#39;t just turn around and say &#39;We&#39;re just kidding,&#39;&quot; he said.About 50 percent of all homes in the U.S. now have digital TVs, and the CEA forecasts that some 28 million digital TVs will be bought in the U.S. this year, Shapiro noted.The transition to digital will not only improve picture quality for consumers, but also free up spectrum that can be used for wireless broadband, Martin stressed. He also noted that the extra spectrum provided by the switch would be used to improve public safety, allowing for better communications between fire departments and police. The need for better coordination among law enforcement and safety officials was a major point made in the 9/11 Commission report, he noted.Requirements related to the auction for 700MHz spectrum blocks in the U.S. will play an important part in bringing broadband access to more people, such as inhabitants in rural areas, who have limited wireless options now, he said.The spectrum auction has been broken up into blocks. One block, for example, has open-access rules and is broken up into 12 regional licenses across the U.S. There are also &quot;buildout&quot; requirements that will ensure that auction winners will actually put the spectrum to use in a reasonable timeframe, Martin said.He declined to comment directly on the planned merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, currently under review by the Department of Justice. But he noted that the companies have been talking about a la carte pricing plans for shows, which would give consumers a wide range of options to choose different bundles of programs and prices. Martin said he would encourage content providers -- especially cable TV companies -- to offer this type of program-options plan.One disappointment in the wake of communications industry deregulation has been the rising price of cable TV, he said.Martin stopped short of saying that approval of the Sirius-XM merger would set a regulatory precedent for a rumored merger deal between satellite TV companies Echostar and DirecTV. But he did say that it would be important for the satellite TV companies to give consumers more pricing and program bundle options as part of any merger plan.&quot;This is the type of thing we&#39;d be looking at,&quot; he said.
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Philips did not on Monday rule out a sale of its TV business, which is suffering from low margins, but said it would for now focus on being more selective in what products it offers where.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony is aggressively promoting high-definition televisions (HDTVs) to consumers and soon it will have a range of digital still cameras to match. Many of the company'sÂ new Cybershot cameras, which will hit global markets in March and April, offer an output for HDTVs. Most current digital cameras support the ability to view pictures on a television set, but this is almost always at standard definition, which is close to VGA resolution of 640 pixels by 480 pixels. More often than not, the original image is much higher quality, so a better image could be displayed on an HDTV if the camera were capable of generating such a video image. That's what Sony has enabled its new Cybershot cameras to do. "We are strongly promoting the importance of high-definition quality," said Kiyoshi Shikano, corporate senior vice president of Sony Marketing (Japan) at a Tokyo news conference Wednesday. "Here in Japan penetration of HDTV is going up every day. It's now almost at 30 percent of households so because of that we're encouraging people to watch digital still camera pictures at the level of high-definition rather than standard level." An additional cable will be required for the high-definition connection. The VMC-MHC1 cable will go on sale on March 9 in Japan for Â¥4,935 ($41) and will connect a Cybershot to a component level input on a television. It can also connect the CSS-HD1 docking unit to a television set. While in the dock the battery in the camera can also be recharged. The HDTV output is available on the DSC-T100, T20, W200, W90, W80, H7 and H9 models. The flagship model of the range is the T100, which combines a slim body with an optical 5X zoom and 8.1-megapixel class image sensor. It has a 3-inch display and will be available in Japan and the U.S. in March for about Â¥50,000 and about $400, respectively. Â
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Sony, the world's largest consumer-electronics group, is having trouble meeting soaring demand for flat televisions as its assembly lines did not gear up quickly enough, a senior official said on Friday.
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Plasma TV suppliers such as Panasonic  maker Matsushita Electric (6752.T), already outnumbered by the  rival LCD camp, are expected to lose further ground as LCD TVs  encroach on the 40-inch-class market, a plasma stronghold.
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Sony Corp.   said on Wednesday it sees its electronics sales growth outpacing the industry in the current fiscal year, fueled by demand for big televisions and digital cameras, while a decline in component pricing could benefit profits.
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Sony has a 27-inch OLED TV prototype. Didn't we see this last year?
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Sony decides not to cut the price of PlayStation 3 in Europe and instead offers a bundle pack with games.
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Sony Corp. plans to withdraw from the plasma television business as early as the first half of 2005, a news report said.
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TOKYO: Japanese consumer products giant Sony Corp. denied Monday a report it planned to withdraw from the plasma television business but said its priority in flat-panel TVs remained liquid crystal display (LCD) sets.
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Blog: What did Sony mean when the company said there would be no PlayStation 3 price cut?
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Japan's Sony Corp. does not expect a  sharp recovery in the profitability of its home electronics  business during the crucial October to December quarter, citing  high costs to develop flat-panel televisions and a shrinking  market for home audio goods.
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Sony Corp. said profit from sales of home electronic products won&#39;t improve next quarter because of falling prices for flat-panel televisions and slumping demand for audio products.
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Sony has denied reports it is to cease making plasma televisions to concentrate instead solely upon LCD (liquid crystal display) models.