What is Sony's most iconic product? Walkman or PlayStation

More iconic sony product


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I'm 54. Sony was known for electronics in general during the Walkman period, but no one product, not even Walkman, became synonymous with Sony like PlayStation has. That's my perspective on it anyway.



It's just a difference of opinion my man
Exactly, the Walkman was very popular for its time. But Sony like this poster explained was always tech hardware company, radios, car radios, tv's, everything. But when things like CD's and the further the OG iPod, it dies . PlayStation is synonymous with Sony now.
 
How could it be the walkman when the whole concept of portable music was eaten by the cellphone? What will eat Playstation?
PlayStations isnt synonymous with conole gaming. Many people just literally say "hes playing mario" or "go play the nintendo" to describe any video game. My parents in their 70s actually call every game "the xbox".

It was never that for the walkman. it was always that, the walkman.
 
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Even though the Walkman was released in 1979, it's anothers example of why the 80's were so awesome. NES, C64 and Walkman, those are my tech takeaways from that era. Music on the go, magical. We take it for granted now.
 
I never owned a walkman, my first music device was an MP3.

In my country and generation for a time in the early 2000s the Sony ericsson phones were insanely popular, if you had one you were cool as hell.

Their TVs were also insanely popular back in the CRT days. And the vaio laptops at some point were regarded as top of the line.


When put like this, sony fumbled a lot of great products lol.

I would say the PS1 is more iconic for the generations born in 1990 and beyond.
 
Walkman and it's not even remotely close

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PlayStations isnt synonymous with conole gaming. Many people just literally say "hes playing mario" or "go play the nintendo" to describe any video game. My parents in their 70s actually call every game "the xbox".

It was never that for the walkman. it was always that, the walkman.
For people in their 70's and up? Sure. I believe that. I also believe that few people under 30 know what the hell a Walkman is. While the majority know what a PlayStation is. PlayStation will live on for many years still. While Walkman has been dead for decades and will be forgotten even more.
 
The Walkman began to seriously fade out in the 90s as people moved to compact discs, and the Discman was just never as popular. Then the mp3 reveloution hit and made cassettes completely irrelevant. While the Walkman was a very important device in its time, technology just kept moving on and drove it into obsolesence.

It is highly unlikely the PlayStation will ever become obsolete. It will continue to go through new iterations that are capable of delivering better graphics and sound. Mediums may change, such as physical games fading more each year. And maybe the PS7 or PS8 will be designed for streaming all games rather than downloading them from a store, who knows. But there's no indication that the core of what makes PlayStation what it is will fade away anytime soon, if ever.
 
Walkman is a fond memory hoisted by nostalgia wankers PlayStation has been the market leader in its segment almost every generation its been on the market and stronger in that position now more than possibly ever.
 
The Walkman was the precursor to the iPod (different company I know), which was the precursor to the iPhone.

So, would smartphones still have existed if the Walkman never was?
 
The Walkman was a way bigger cultural influence and must-have back in the days, at its peak. To me it's a no-brainer that it is way more iconic.

It's not cool to own a Playstation but it sure was cool to own a Walkman.
The PS2 was absolutely insane, non gamers got it just as a dvd player. We need some actual numbers to compare peaks.
 
Growing up in the 90s, Sony was most well known the world over for Trintron TVs. Almost, everyone I knew the had a Sony TV. Walkman was limited to music buffs in my area, which were few. In my class of about 20 students, only one had a walkman as most preferred listening on radios - Aiwa and Toshiba were popular brands.

Today, the only well known product of the company imo is PlayStation. The company has generally failed in other traditional sectors mainly due to higher price for similar features as compared to competing brands.
 
I think you're attributing the arrival of the PSX with a maturation of the industry that would have happened regardless. The gaming industry was maturing by the early to mid 90s and the kids that had grown up playing arcade games, Atari/NES/SEGA etc throughout the 80s had grown up with it. It was always going to go in this direction.

No Way Kg GIF by SHOWTIME Sports



PlayStation did that!
 
as an old fart myself, I feel the walkman's influence is a little too underestimated. it essentially popularized the whole portable device thing. cellphones and then later on smart phones all basically have some lineage going back to the walkman if you think about it.
 
Go outside and ask people if they know what a walkman is and who made it. Then ask them the same about PlayStation. The walkman was iconic, undeniably, but when it comes to popularity, PlayStation isn't just more popular than Walkman, as a brand. Playstation is arguably more popular than Sony itself.
 
If someone was doing a documentary on Sony, for sure the Walkman would have a chunk of time dedicated to it - but that's the past, old technology, part of history, part of Sony's story. But PlayStation is on a whole other level and has been Sony's premier brand for much longer than Walkman was, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
 
The Playstation was an evolution, the Walkman a revolution.

Yep, recency bias in full effect in this thread.

Damned kids.....
This. For those who say "Playstation made gaming no longer a kids thing", I counter with this:

Playstation sold to teenagers and young adults who were many of the same kids NES was aimed at.
 
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This is a fun question. Personally, I am team Walkman. I 100% understand why anyone below a certain age range would say PS. In fact, I can understand the argument for PS regardless of age range. I personally don't believe PS would exist if Walkman never did though. And it was the precursor to so much, while revolutionizing portable music. And of course there's nostalgia. Those yellow waterproof ones were every kids dream walkman.
 
Walkman/discman were huge! Led to an expansion of many different products by Sony.

I would be curious how much money Sony made off of Bluray as well!
Yeah but even Sony didn't have enough confidence in the Walkman brand not to go with Discman rather than CD Walkman. Think they might have walked that back - but if even Sony didn't believe in the 'Walkman' as a brand.
Guarantee that anything gaming related from Sony will have the Playstation branding on it.
 
The Playstation was an evolution, the Walkman a revolution.

Yep, recency bias in full effect in this thread.

Damned kids.....
Also sales numbers are irrelevant. Ofcourse literally every tech company churned out Walkman copies. But everybody still called them Walkmans...
 
Yeah but even Sony didn't have enough confidence in the Walkman brand not to go with Discman rather than CD Walkman. Think they might have walked that back - but if even Sony didn't believe in the 'Walkman' as a brand.
Guarantee that anything gaming related from Sony will have the Playstation branding on it.
Wait, what?

Do you have an actual (and decent) source for that? I always knew Discman to be an evolution of Walkman. Bear in mind CD's were also revolutionary. Getting disc in the name to differentiate the product lines did not seem like distancing to me. It was highlighting the disc IMO.
 
Wait, what?

Do you have an actual (and decent) source for that? I always knew Discman to be an evolution of Walkman. Bear in mind CD's were also revolutionary. Getting disc in the name to differentiate the product lines did not seem like distancing to me. It was highlighting the disc IMO.
If you mean not having confidence, the evidence is that they didn't use the Walkman branding at first. Imagine if Sony had released the Portablestation.
 
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Awesome game, I own it, but not a jrpg and not a Sony 1st party, although it looks like it was funded by them so that's good.
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You also only said 'RPG' (and even then, it's not that different to many modern games considered to be JRPGs).
Plus, 95% of Sony's RPG/JRPGs weren't even developed by its internal studios, so I don't get where you're coming from.
 
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