5 Of The Best Products Sony Should Have Never Discontinued
Did you ever dream of having Sony's robot puppy as a kid? Well, you should have because if more kids had demanded their parents buy them, they might have stayed on the market at an affordable price point. We could all be walking our little robo-rovers and throwing their pink rubber ball accessories for them! Unfortunately, like many other products, the robot puppy was canceled by Sony before some of us ever got our hands on it.
To backtrack a bit: Sony is a massive company with its hand in many pies. It has been around since 1946, though it didn't actually go by Sony until 1958. Like any company with as many ranges of products in as many areas of the technology industry, as it has, there are bound to be some duds. But along with the duds, there are also bound to be some products that did have an enthusiastic audience or could have found one but were taken from us before their time.
In this article, we're going to look at five of the best products that Sony shouldn't have discontinued. From the handheld consoles everyone had to the robotic pet dogs, here's our list.
PlayStation Portable
When Sony released the PlayStation Portable in 2004, handheld systems themselves weren't new. Nintendo's Game Boy had already been around for almost 20 years. But the PSP was still revolutionary to the seventh-generation video game consoles. It may not have been able to compete with the Nintendo DS in the end, but it's number one in many millennial hearts. That's the generation for which the PSP stood out because it didn't last that long.
The console sold almost 80 million units and pioneered a lot of services that other handhelds copied. It could play movies, access the internet, and play music. It even had a 32MB storage memory card. It might sound funny now, but hey — that was a lot in 2004!
Would the 2004 PSP be impressive in 2023? Probably not. But Sony's original selling point with the PSP was all about the innovation it was bringing to the field. Surely Sony could have just kept that train rolling with more innovation? We wish we could have seen what the PSP would have become if it hadn't been discontinued in January of 2014.
PlayStation Vita
Some products live what Sony deems a full lifespan and get aged out of production. Some, however, are taken from us before their time. Sony introduced the PS Vita as a successor to the PlayStation Portable in 2012, but sales were never what Sony expected.
There may have been a few reasons, and the console itself isn't to blame for all of them. It was launched amidst impending regime change in the American division of the company. This was also around the same time mobile gaming was becoming a thriving market and a new competition to handheld games.
Due to those reasons, there would have been growing pains for any system launching around that time. That didn't mean the Vita had to be tossed aside, though. The console sold well in Japan, where Sony put energy into marketing it. However, the advertising in the North American market was pretty slim by comparison.
Sony discontinued the Vita in 2019 after only five years on the market. It even tried shutting down the Vita storefront in 2021 but backtracked after user complaints.
Original Sony Aibo
Some of the products on this list were high sellers in their time but discontinued due to age or technological irrelevance. The Sony Aibo is not one of those products. The Aibo (which stands for Artificial Intelligence Robot) line consisted of robotic animals. These were primarily dogs, but a few other Aibo species were created, including lions. The robot pets came with touch sensors that let them know when they were being petted and enough moving parts for physical versatility.
The Aibo litter was born from Sony's Computer Science Laboratory, the lab set up in the '90s as an innovation center. They were never massive sellers, moving only 150,000 units in the seven years they were for sale. Despite not being a huge money maker, the Aibo designs are still featured in the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. There's even one in the Carnegie Mellon University Robot Hall of Fame!
This product line also stands out from the others because while it was discontinued in 2006, Sony actually has brought it back. The new Aibo has a hefty price tag (around $3,000), and Sony boasts it can form an emotional bond with its owner. While that sounds nice... we have seen the movie M3gan. The new Aibos are even illegal in Illinois, thanks to state regulations on face-detecting technology. We think maybe we just want the original Aibos back to be the good boys they were.
DSLR cameras
While Sony was once at the top of the DSLR food chain, all eras come to an end. Sony being a name in the camera field, began in 2005 when it purchased Konica Minolta. Minolta sold SLR cameras, which used a mirror inside of it as a reflex to bounce light into the viewfinder. This made images easier to compose.
When Sony purchased the company, it progressed into digital SLR cameras — the DSLR. These cameras ditched the concept of film and instead used image sensors. Sony may have never been a competitor for more well-established companies like Canon or Nikon, but it still found success.
The discontinuation of DSLR cameras in 2021 probably didn't come as a shock to anyone. The last model it announced was back in 2016, with the A99 II. Between 2016 and 2021, the only new addition to Sony's DSLR photography lineup was a mount adaptor. Sony's range of mirrorless digital cameras is impressive, but for any photography buff who learned the trade during the aughts, the DSLR will be sorely missed.
Sony Hi8/Digital8 Handycams
This one's a technicality because the Handycam hasn't actually been discontinued. Instead, it has evolved over the years to the point where it's pretty much unrecognizable. It's also no longer referred to as "Handycam." The Handycam has been around since the mid-'80s, with two versions ruling the market between 1995 and when they were discontinued in 2007.
If you're over 25, there's a decent chance you remember family vacations where someone was toting around a little silver camcorder to capture the memories. You can still get them on eBay, but you'd get some strange looks walking around filming people.
There's no practical reason for the original Sony Handycam to come back... but do we really need to be practical? Look at Polaroid cameras or Sony's line of Walkman digital music players. Gen-Z is even abandoning their phone cameras and bringing old-school point-and-shoots back. If nostalgia for the 2000s is in style right now, then they should get to know what watching a tape back on VHS feels like.