Sony

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Sony

Basic information
Founded	1946
Legal structure	Public
Industry	Conglomerate
Official website	https://sony.com/

Sony Group Corporation is a Japanese Zaibatsu (or mega corporation) headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group owns Sony Corporation, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Sony Entertainment (including Sony Pictures and Sony Music Group), Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Financial Group, among others.

Sony was established in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The young company distinguished itself in the consumer electronics market with transistor radios, home video tape recorders, portable audio players called the Walkman, and compact disk players. In 1988, Sony acquired CBS Records. Later, in 1989 it acquired Columbia Pictures. The company also introduced the home video game console PlayStation in 1994.

Different products with systemic problems

1. Sony's WF-1000XM4 earbuds
2. Sony x900h television
3. Sony WH-1000XM5

Controversies

Controversy	Year	Background Info	Aftermath	Related Article	Related Video(s)
Sony BMG CD copy protection rootkit	2005	Sony BMG distributed about 20 million disks preloaded with copy protection software that tracks the users listening habits (even if the user did not agree to the EULA), hides itself, and introduces exploitable bugs, as such it has been classified as a rootkit. Furthermore, they released an uninstaller tool later that merely unhides the their original rootkit and installs more unremovable software, all while extracting more personal information (Email addresses) from users.	Class action lawsuits in 2005-2006 forced Sony to recall about 10% of affected CDs. Sony stopped their copy protection attempts in 2007.	https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Sony%27s_DRM_protected_CDs_install_Windows_rootkits https://fsfe.org/activities/drm/sony-rootkit-fiasco.en.html https://web.archive.org/web/20081224153240/http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/titles.html
PlayStation Store Shutdown	2021	Sony intended to shut down the PlayStation Store on its PS3, PS Vita, and PSP consoles, despite many of the content offerings not being available on newer consoles.	Sony walked back the decision for the PS3 and PS Vita, citing the negative response from customers.
Removal of Discovery titles	2023	Sony intended to remove customers' access to "purchased" Discovery Channel content at the end of their licensing agreements.	Sony reversed the decision, allowing customers to continue accessing the content.
Helldivers 2 PSN Account Requirement	2024	Sony added a PSN account requirement for Helldivers 2 after the game had become popular, including in countries where you can't create a PSN account.	The requirement was removed , however the game was removed from sale in countries without PSN.