They're also world leaders in software development for robotics.
Japan also developed 3G (UMTS), which is why Japanese phones no longer dominate the Japanese market.
The japanese are pretty weak in english in general.
Source: 84 Play Podcast interview with Gregg Tavares (I think, I cant relisten to the podcast now). Linked if interested http://8-4.jp/blog/?p=1423&lang=en
Idiots...
The best GUI's and UX considerations for video games are a completely different kettle of sushi than what you want from a consumer electronics device.
I want to play a puzzle with Super Mario.
I want to answer a red-eye phone call in the middle of the night with my iPhone without playing a game (it still has a lovely app wrapper for puzzle games, right there on the customisable app launching springboard for when I want that sort of software).
I adore Japanese hardware/software design, but I don't want my toothbrush or phone to be kawaii.
Not to mention Japanese games are notorious for their inscrutable, awkward and sometimes downright user-hostile controls, menus, save systems, etc. (As per common western opinion; who knows, perhaps the Japanese truly prefer it?)
But when considering what is great about Japanese games, no-one has ever lauded the game-user interface. Their games are largely great in spite of that side of things.
But how much credit is because of the programmers being better than the rest, and not because of the creativity of the designers, the graphics, or even the hardware the games were created to run on?
Yet I was amazed by how long it took Sony and Nintendo to build something as seemingly prosaic as a usable menu system in their recent consoles. Part of me wonders if the Apple/Microsoft patent battles of the 80's deterred a lot of capable non-US companies from doing any work in operating systems.
The article seems to ignore any discussion of startup culture, which I've read elsewhere is a challenge in a country whose business culture has been defined by the "salaryman" working their entire career for one company. I mean, should we be surprised that companies around for the better part of a century are getting disrupted?
Combine that with the wide inventory of platforms they're in - imagine a Sony-branded de-Googled version of Android running on everything from PSPs to smart TVs.
They're excellently positioned, and they've demonstrated they can make good software in the various PlayStation-related devices.
I'd only like to add Sony's tendency for crippling devices, probably starting with the MiniDisc and continuing this fine tradition until today.
The underlying basis, of course, is the media division.
It's a shame really, when you look at Sony's past. Hell! The Walkman was an incredibly innovative device. While the iPod essentially was a repackaging of existing technologies (great repackaging, but still) Sony's Walkman was actually the invention of music on the go.
What a shame.
Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that, whilst I could digitally upload music to the device, I could not digitally download music from it. Unbelievable! I did a few by attaching the headphone to the mic port on my computer and playing the music in real time, whilst recording on the PC. But this was such a time consuming process that I quickly lost interest. A shame, because I did get a few really good recordings.
Instead we got single-write cds (no one bothered with rewritable) until finally usb sticks made optical obsolete.
But yeah, Sony seems like a very divided company - if the myriad divisions got together to work on a single unified customer-facing infrastructure of devices and e-store and whatnot, they could re-take that spectacular brand power they had in the early '90s. But their internal politics will never allow that, sadly.
(just kidding, as far as I know)
Also my experience with japanese products is that they don't "get" software, not that they are bad at it. I am sure that the developers are as competent as anywhere in the world but they deliver what they are ordered to.
When you make a game for a console, mistakes are very costly: it makes a lot of sense to get it right the first time. Attention to details is a trait that Japanese culture really emphasises (always think about every possible thing that can fail, triple check, etc...).
Now, for most software products, that's a different story. I think that's part of the story why you don't see great software companies in Japan.
Japanese phones were several years more capable than the first few iPhones and at the time it was thought that Japan would never use them. What changed that was how much better a phone was when it connected to a store to buy apps and games. Competition purely on electronics doesn't cut it anymore.
It's a shame Sony didn't realise this sooner, they've made phones, laptops, game consoles, music players for years. They should have been in the position to do the iTunes store or Apps way before Apple. They seem to only be trying to do such a thing now with bolted on crap like replay sharing on PS4.
Edit: Sony have a record label as well!
Also they did build the first ebook reader, but they lost to the kindle. Since the ereader is mostly about building ecosystems, maybe the same would have happened to them with app stores ?
The viewpoint of things as stand alone devices has ruined them. It's not necessarily to do with one device to replace many (smart phone to replace PDA, walkman and laptop for example - they ultimately did that) but that couldn't tie them all together. Anyway, if they don't cannibalise their own products, someone else will (and did). It's only short term profit focus that scares them from doing so.
However they lacked the internal structure and strategy to really deploy them effectively. Plus someone would have had to choose a suboptimal strategy for their division's financial results if they were to avoid selling some rights or exclusivity externally but to use it for joined up strategies. (Or the low profit hardware arm would have had to paid commercial rates.)
It also surprisingly gets harder in many ways to negotiate for other rights when you have your own studio/record label and who wants to only watch/listen to Sony content. Anti-trust law may be a factor in this (as a content owner Sony couldn't legally do an Apple and tell their competitors what pricing model to accept) but also it changes the tone of the negotiation and attitude of other parties when they are your competitor.
And finally just when the network technology and the products are getting to the point where a useful internet delivered content ecosystem can be established somebody high up the organisation decides to split the platform and bend over for Google in order for the honour of making the Google TV for US only under ridiculous contract terms based on Intel hardware costs and to be supported by a dreadful marketing campaign it still sows FUD amongst content partners.
[Former Sony (Software Engineer, Product Planner, Biz Dev - all in European TV business)].
I don't know the history of Steam that well but my understanding was that it started as an easy way to get their own games. Yes Sony Music could have done the same (maybe they did but I can't remember) but a store with a seemingly random selection of about 25% of pop music doesn't make a great hit in the era of Napster and when they are still pushing DRM (which Steam also uses).
I don't believe that as a company with about 25% of the music market could legally impose pricing conditions on it's competitors (Valve may allow flexible pricing but iTunes did not at least at the beginning and I don't believe was such a proportion of the market at the time).