Sony deprecating features in some 2025 Bravia TVs

sony.com

6 points·CobrastanJorji··4 comments

It's not the biggest set of things to deprecate, but it's upsetting to me that a big brand like Sony Bravia isn't worried about shutting down even minor features less than a year after a product that retailed for like $2000 is released.

Probably related to the January news that Sony sold Bravia to TCL, licensing the Sony name and tech: https://www.sony.co.jp/en/news-release/202601/26-0120E/

That’s an odd set of model numbers, though. It doesn’t include X95 but it does include A95 and Bravia always used A-$$$$ models to launch new stuff, which suggests that it was some sort of hardware architecture revision-step — probably with a new version of Google TV — and whatever they found was enough to make them say ‘fuck this noise’ and sell their TV division, which itself appears to be reacting similarly.

Also a weird set of features to remove from pre-TCL products. This one has me perplexed:

> Set Top Box (STB) TV Menu: - The Set Top Box menu will be removed. - A Control menu will appear instead.

Ah, they’re all one package of functionality: Enrich broadcast TV control and schedule functionality through maintenance of third-party integrations, such as set top boxes or cover art. Because Sony isn’t the authoritative source for an icon for Burn Unit or Hospital Grace or whatever (I made those up, hopefully they’re not real!). Certainly every single integration costs time and/or money. (IF you could charge money for a service, would you give it for free to Sony?)

I wonder if they’re predicting a collapse in data harvesting revenue, or just found that inflation-adjusted wage decreases have shrunk the top end out of their TV market and so they’re cutting corners.

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