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I agree with Gizmodo that this picture explains Sony’s challenge.

I was talking with a friend about this only last week as I love Sony products (just was @ewand). They do beautiful design, tend to have premium prices and have a lot of products within a single category – they tend to throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. In times of affluence that works to a point but in the current climate you have to wonder what their strategy will be, especially with recent financial performance. It’s a tough decision – do you stick to the upper end of the market and compete with Apple on premium price with cool tech like OLED or do you come down the market and compete with the volume of mass market players. For a long time Sony has done both and with a reasonable degree of success but to survive, I have to think there is a tough choice they’re going to have to maker. The premium end is only going to get tougher as people watch their finances…though the volume end of things has razor thin margins and many competitors by definition.

Tough times explained in one photograph.