 Welcome to Top Shelf. I'm your host, David Pierce, and this is our weekly show where we bring you the best, brightest, craziest, and pixel-dense-iest of the consumer electronics industry. Starting up, we'll take a deep look at Sony. The company's trying to reclaim its position as a premium consumer electronics brand across a number of different categories. But is it working? We'll have Verge managing editor, Nilay Patel, and Polygon managing editor, Justin McElroy, on hand to argue. This week's episode is brought to you by Verge and Mobile. But before we go any further, let's talk about Mobile World Congress. Last week, phone makers and carriers descended upon Barcelona for the world's largest mobile conference. MWC was in its largest venue ever this year, but it was surprisingly more subdued. There's actually been a lot of mobile news recently, but most of it came from outside of Spain. HTC and Samsung did their own thing for their big announcements, and Microsoft and Google pretty much avoided the conference entirely. Here's what we did learn, though. While Nokia didn't announce a tablet like we'd hoped, CEO Stephen Elop told us quite confidently that it can compete with Microsoft's Surface. Nokia did expand its Lumia lineup with two nice mid-range devices, the 520 and 720. And now, after more than 10 Lumia launches, it's really up to Microsoft to make Windows Phone more appealing. We also got a chance to see a few of the first Firefox OS devices, which will come to market in the next few months. They're...well, they're not very good. But these phones are going to be really inexpensive. Mozilla's targeting the low-end smartphone market, as well as developing countries, and that's something carriers seem to enthusiastically support. All over the MWC show floor, phones are getting bigger, and they're converging in this odd middle ground between phone and tablet. Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE are leading the charge, and they're using these phablets to stake their claim on the global market. So yeah, it was a pretty slow conference, but we did see the walking cane of the future. Which was a thing, and that's awesome. But slow show or not, we love Mobile World Congress, because part of the allure is just Barcelona itself. Our own Dan Seifert took along the wild new Sony Cybershot RX1 on a trip around the city to capture Barcelona in all its glorious detail. Check it out, and we'll be back with Nilay Patel. With cameras, there are always trade-offs. The best images require bulky DSLRs, while the most compact point-and-shoots are lacking in both image quality and control. That is until now. Enter Sony's RX1. The RX1 is an unassuming camera that's roughly the same size as Sony's NEX line of interchangeable lens cameras. It has a full-frame image sensor, something that's usually reserved for those super high-end DSLRs. Full-frame sensors offer much better image quality. Shooting with the RX1 almost feels like cheating. Low light, bad light, no light, all of those things that are difficult to manage with most cameras just disappear when you're shooting with the RX1. It's also littered with control dials, including three control rings on the lens. It's a system that requires some setup, but once you're set with it, it works really well. The RX1 isn't without its limits, though. The sheer compact size of it means that it doesn't have the ability to change lenses, and it doesn't even have a zoom function. But the Carl Zeiss lens nearly makes up for those limitations. The lens is incredibly sharp edge-to-edge, even when open to its maximum aperture, and it doesn't have any vignetting in the corners or problems with chromatic aberrations. Lenses are contrasty and vibrant, and the lens's manual aperture ring clicks along with a satisfying feel. The manual focus ring is well-damped and precise, which is good because the autofocus kinda sucks, and the battery life is pretty disappointing as well. And then there's the price. The RX1 is nearly $3,000, and you'd be a fool not to buy it with the electronic viewfinder for another $450. It's definitely more of a luxury camera. The RX1 isn't perfect, it's not for the faint-hearted or the beginner, but if you do have deep pockets and a love for photography, the RX1 is the one to beat. So Sony's actually been doing really interesting things in cameras for a couple of years now, and they're doing innovative and cool things that really no one else in that space is. And I actually think that's the case across a lot of product lines for Sony. But here to disagree violently with me is our managing editor, Nilay Patel. Hello. So... You're wrong. I think... That's okay, all right. Good talk. I've gotta go. I think Sony's in this interesting place where they kind of get it now, it seems like, with hardware especially. So the Xperia Tablet Z, to me, is the best example of this, where I had a meeting with them a few weeks ago where they showed off the tablet and were talking to me about it, and I asked what the price was. Because nobody ever leaves with the price, which I think is sort of hilarious. Unless it's like $8, and then they're like, here it is, it's bad, it's $8, see you later. Shut up. But so I asked, and they were like, it's $499. And I laughed. I was like, that's... And then you were like, shut up. Basically. And he was like, why are you laughing? And I said, no one other than Apple has ever sold a tablet for $499 and pulled it off. And he showed it to me, and he was like, it's thin, our screen is gorgeous, we have all this cool technology behind it, we have an IR blaster. And they're like, we can build... Game over, everyone. IR blaster. Yeah, there's that. We have a 5-cent park in 1973. No, but he said... Right in the tablet. He made the point over and over where he was like, Sony used to be a company that made premium products for a premium price, and they're unabashedly back towards that. That's fine, but I think Sony's problem is, it's not that they're doing a new thing for Sony, it's that they have the same problem they always have, which is they make tremendous hardware, great, beautiful, some of the best engineered, best designed, best looking hardware in the market, and their software is still crap. And they haven't solved it. Look, here's a Clie from 2003. This thing is beautiful. I'm pretty sure I wanted one of those. It has a jog dial. It has a high resolution screen and a 66 megahertz processor. It has a memory, a 64 megabyte memory card that looks like a stick of gum. Only Sony pulls off this, right? But it ran Palm OS and was a failure. And when the world moved on from Palm OS, Sony had nowhere to go. And it's kind of that case right now with the Tablet Z, right? They have Android, they've skinned it, it's an okay skin, they've got a bunch of weird apps that aren't very good, but I don't know where they're gonna go with it. I don't know that people are clamoring for Sony software, and our world is completely dominated by software. Right, but my thing is I think, I don't know that I totally agree with that anymore. I mean, it is, but in a sense that we've, I think people are willing for the first time in a long time to pay real money for really good products. And we've seen it with, you know, the Windows laptops are getting more and more expensive and people are still buying them. And like there just aren't that many crappy laptops anymore. I think people, I think Sony makes really beautiful hardware, and I think that the mark of a good product is hardware plus software plus like integration with services. I think that's why Apple's products are successful, for example. I think Windows products are successful because the vast majority of them are cheap. And they're getting more expensive, and I don't think that like the Ultrabook revolution has like taken the world by storm, and I think all the weird Windows 8 stuff is just weird. And I don't think that any of it's gonna, look, here's Sony's weird Windows 8. What's this one called? This is the Viya Duo 11. This is the Viya Duo 11, which is great. It's a weird tablet. It's 16 by 9, which is a bad form factor for a tablet. And it does this to turn into a laptop. And this is great. This is like a classic Sony thing that it does. Only Sony builds something that does this as beautifully as this does this. And then it does it, and you're like, oh, this is useless. Right. I don't want this. Instead of a trackpad, it's got this weird optical thing. The space bar and these buttons aren't in the right place. So it's like, great, Sony, you did a great job executing this idea. In the world of hardware products, only Sony does this in any way that is beautiful like this one is. Right. But this isn't, I don't think that this is what people are clamoring for. And I think they're putting the overwhelming power of their hardware might behind these kinds of designs, but they're not, they still haven't learned how to build software. Right. So I agree. I think Sony's not Apple yet. Right. But I think they're, I mean, yeah, I don't think anybody's arguing that. But I think that the big first step is we have to have things that people want to buy. Sure. And I really do believe that people want, I mean, you're seeing it with everything from tablets to smartphones to laptops to TVs. People want pretty things and will pay for pretty things. Samsung has those TVs with no bezels, no other features. They just don't have bezels. And they're selling like crazy, and they're insanely expensive. So people will pay for fit and finish and design and good hardware. I think that, look, Sony makes, I completely agree with you. I think Sony makes some of the best hardware in the market. And there has to be room in the market for more than just Apple, right? For the feeling stuff. And I think that now that, like, Android is a commodity, right? Everybody else runs Android. Right. And Windows Phone is still relegated and Blackberry is still relegated to third place. Sure. Great. So you want an Android phone, you want the best one. Are you looking to Sony or are you looking to Samsung? And I think most people are still looking to Samsung because they're everywhere. They're out there. They're producing these phones. They're marketing these phones. And they're still, they're not. And the Galaxy S3 is not expensive anymore. It's been subsidized to nothing. The S4 will probably start out expensive and go down. So for Sony to stay way at the top end of this market, they have to offer something else. And they could, right, they could say, we've got the best image sensor because we make really great cameras. They could say, we have PlayStation, which they don't say. Like they have this idea that they're going to be one Sony. They've been saying it over and over and over again. And they're not. So what I think is really interesting is the Tablet Z is like kind of unrelated from the Xperia Z phone. And why? Like they're, one's just kind of a bigger riff on the other. They're named the same thing. Right. But one comes out of Sony Electronics and one comes out of Sony Mobile. And I have no idea why. And it's the same for the computers. It's the same for the TVs. I think the IR blaster and the tablet is a really good example, right? Why is that there? So it can talk to televisions. Why can't Sony TVs and the tablet talk to each other better than that? But like in that case, wouldn't you rather, I feel like I would rather have something as opposed to what Apple has, which is super tight integration, but only if you buy its stuff. Like I like this idea that Sony says, hey, you might own an LG TV. I don't think Sony likes that idea at all. Well, no, I think they hate that idea. But I'm not, it's, they have to be realistic about it. Where Apple is just like, oh, if you don't own all of our devices, sucks for you. Good luck. But that's their goal. I mean, like fundamentally the reason, Sony can make all the great hardware in the world. But until they learn for all of their like warring divisions to talk to each other and for every Sony phone to be a PlayStation phone, they're never going to get anywhere because that's the thing. That's the network effect of buying all of their stuff that makes a company successful. So you actually interviewed Phil Molyneux, Sony's, I think he's COO. Yeah, Sony Electronics. Sony, okay. But so you interviewed him about some of their new products and they brought out in this event all of their products and all their competitors' products. And we're like, here's why we're better. And was any part of that story like, we have a better system because we're Sony and we make all this stuff and that's great? So here's what was really interesting about that event. They had the tablet there, the tablet seat, which is beautiful. And they're like, it's thinner than the iPad mini. It is really gorgeous hardware. It is. And everybody should, you know, if you're going to buy an Android tablet, maybe you should buy that one. But the only, that was the only product they didn't have the comparison. So like they had their TV and LG's TV with a tape over the LG logo in case you liked it better. They're like, we don't want you to know what it is. But then they had their tablet and they did not have the iPad. Right. And I thought that was very, very telling. Why didn't they have the iPad? I mean, like their whole shake is there. Because the comparison doesn't hold up, right? Why not though? I mean, if they're doing just a pure hardware comparison in that case, like their thing from the beginning was like, it's thin and it is thinner and it's lighter and then you can hold it in one hand. And like, I would think they'd want to show that, especially if you only get, you know, 10 seconds to play with it. Yeah, but I think as soon as you click on that App Store icon, I think bad things happen for Android tablets. And this is their problem, right? They don't have ownership over the core part of what they do, which is they make a, the tablet is a computer, right? And they don't have ownership over how good that computer inherently will be because the tablet apps on Android aren't there. And that's like, it's just Sony's problem. They've run into a wall because they can't solve their software problem. But like ultimately what was interesting to me about interviewing Phil that day and seeing Sony on that day was that they did not talk about the PS4, which is I think arguably the most important product that they have. It's the key to this like big ecosystem network effect where if you get the PS4 and all of the promises that they've made about it are true, then you will want to buy more Sony products because it is the center of that experience. We should get into the PS4, but to do so, we've brought Justin McElroy, Polygon's managing editor to talk to us. He has probably more violent disagreements with both me and Neilife. That's possible. So Justin, what do you think? Is Sony, is Sony going to win this console race this time? Just a little early to make those kinds of calls. We don't even know what Microsoft is working with. If indeed they release any console at all. There's been no news. That would be great if Microsoft is like, no, we're out. This was fun. We quit. Yeah. PS4 mystery box. We can't compete with that. Listen, we got Zune, we got Bing, got a lot of profit centers. We are cool. We're golden. It's over. No more games for us. Yeah. So we're really excited about this Sony event, and they really did kind of build the PS4 as not only a gaming platform, but like the center of this whole universe and ecosystem that Sony is really trying to build. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a broad reaching strategy for me to try to make it the same. I mean, have we not gotten past that point? I mean, are we not past that white whale of like the interconnected set top box that does everything? Yeah, I don't think, I think people want more, for lack of a better term, fiddliness than that provides. Yeah. I think people are always going to have their own devices and they're not going to want a walled garden where there's features they're missing out on because they're not using a certain Sony device. So I think it's going to be hard for it to be too valuable to have that sort of integration without excluding people who are missing out. But is the market for just a pure game device there? I mean, aren't they going to get crushed by the iPad and like kid, like parents buying their kids a $329 iPad mini instead of a $400 PS4? I'm not sure that the metaphor is necessarily there for an iPad versus a gaming console. Like I think that it's the same metaphorical leap as like, why would you want an iPad when you already have an iPhone? I mean, that's the gulf we're talking about. I don't think so. I think the leap, I think the metaphor is money. What are you going to spend your $300 on? And I think for a lot of parents are going to say, well, that thing has games. The games for that thing cost $3. But the iPhone has games and they're still selling iPads. I think that's crushing the console market too. I think that, I think that's a tidal wave of problems for Sony, right? I think that people still want to play a game with a controller and a box that is, that you put discs into and I think that metaphor is not going away. I can absolutely see, I mean, like, I think the future, the end game, I think for video games is a phone in your pocket that connects to a controller that rests on your living room. The phone pushes video to your TV or your receiver or what have you. The controller communicates with the phone in your pocket. Like I think that's the future as far as I'm concerned. I don't think we get there this generation. I think we've got at least one more console generation in the way that we've come to think of it. And for me as someone who puts video games above other forms of tech just because of my career and what we saw for the PS4 event was super encouraging from that front. I mean, to your point about software, they didn't hit the box very hard. It wasn't a presentation about technical specifications. The person you had doing the thrust of the presentation was Mark Cerny who's like a video game guy. I mean, dude made Marble Madness, you know, Crash Bandicoot. He's worked on basically every major Sony gaming franchise for like, you know, 20 years. So to me the message that I got is that they know that they're putting that first. They're putting software first. At least that was the message I got from Cerny being the lead architect and the sort of spokesperson they were pushing there. But that sounds like the PS4 will be this like siloed game experience. I mean, this is the other part of my argument is that Sony isn't integrating its stuff together. So you know, Sony has a music service that like may or may not like show up on the PS4, right? They are going to, they have a bunch of tablets and computers that like may or may not work with the PS4. Why wouldn't they want, why would they want to build a siloed experience for games when they keep saying they're going to integrate across the entire company? What's the, I mean, I guess I don't see what the value of that, of like what is the experience that is not there, I guess is what I don't understand. Like the PS4 and really the Xbox 360 also for Microsoft are kind of the gateway drug into these ecosystems. So in the same way that like the iPod Touch is what gets you into Apple. I feel like Sony, kind of like you said, they have the music service. They have, they'll sell me videos. They'll like, they should be able to move all my stuff around and let me use all of my things on my various devices. And Microsoft is being smart with smart glass and stuff like that. They're trying. And well, right, they seem to get it. I don't know if they're taking all of the steps they need to, but they seem to get it. But it seems to me that Justin, I kind of think you're right in the sense that Sony, the games are going to be what sell the PS4, but I think Sony could make the PS4 what sells its other devices. The PS4 could be what sells Sony. Right. Right. And so actually what I'm very curious, more curious to ask you about Justin is do you think the games are there to sell the PS4? I mean, I went to that event, I didn't see a bunch of like awesome games. I saw a lot of explosions. I saw a lot of ideas about games that I've seen before and I found myself wondering like is am I going to buy this because the explosions are better or am I going to buy this because it has new kinds of interesting games that I want to try? So I guess if I had a problem, it was the fact that like I didn't see a lot of, you know, experiences that I wasn't, that I'm not currently getting on my current console. So yeah, I mean, absolutely if they had a failing, it was like I didn't see that moment that was like I have to own this. I mean, obviously I will have, but you know what? It's also going to be harder this generation. I think maybe even harder than any other generation before because in the, when you go from PS2 to PS3 or Xbox to Xbox 360, you're really making this leap in the high definition and like you, it is not going to be that sort of jump. Like they're not going to be able to do that graphically. So it's not going to have the impact there. I'm really hopeful for E3. I'm hopeful that we're going to see some really interesting like gaming experiences that you can't get anywhere else because I mean, I agree with you. The number of, of sequels was like really upsetting. I mean, there are these big studios that like, I would love to see what else they could do. Sucker Punch, for example, rather than like, oh, another infamous game. Okay. I mean, I'm sure that'll be, that'll be really good, but I'm, you know, I, you kind of think of a new console is like the place where these developers get to stretch their legs, you know, and not make another Killzone game. What was funny about that event was they kept on saying things like, and we're proud to announce that Killzone 25 will come to the PlayStation 4. I was like, where else is it going to go? Like we're bringing it to the Genesis. Like what are you, why are you so proud of yourself? I forget who said it, but someone said that Killzone fans are Sony's analogy for the Canadian girlfriend. No, no, no. You guys, if she was here, she would tell you she's really gorgeous. I think you saw Sony show exactly enough, they enough to get people talking enough of these features that are almost going to be accepted in the next generation. Like obviously they, that we have to have these features and they're going to look like innovators when Microsoft also has these features. I mean, they're going to look like, Oh yeah, we've also got, you know, like a safe state or streaming or whatever. And it'll look like Sony gets the opportunity to look like they came up with it. So Justin, do you think, have we seen enough to be excited? Are you excited about what Sony is up to? Do you think they're moving in the right direction or are we still in kind of wait and see mode until E3? Absolutely. Listen, if I had, if I had seen the same sort of arrogance I saw on display when the PS3 launched, I would, you know, I would be sizing up for a coffin. But I think that what you saw at this event was someone who is, knows they have market share to reclaim that, that has someone out front like Mark Cerny that communicates like, Hey, we care about games. We want your business. You know, we want to draw people in. Sony right now looks like, from the video game perspective, looks like a company that, that has, is, is ready for a fight. And like, I don't know, I don't know where that, where that leaves Microsoft. In a fight. In a fight. In a terrible fight. Yeah, they will have a fight. I mean, Sony looks like a company that's saying the right things, that understands the message that they needed to send to reconnect with people, that hopefully has learned from the sort of like almost, you know, bullheaded nature of the PS3 that just sort of pushes forward and expects users to deal with the multiple weaknesses that that system had five, six, seven years ago and continues to have to this very day. All right. Justin McElroy, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. An exquisite pleasure having me. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. The pleasure. There was pleasure all around. So it's enough. So I tend to do take notes. We're notes. Yeah. I do agree kind of with what Justin just said, which is that Sony gets the right things. And this is kind of what I got from the Tablet Z and the whole conversation I had with them, which is that like they get it. They get what they need to do. They get where they need to go. But I'm curious what you think. I agree that Android is kind of their biggest problem. Like Android and Windows are standing in their way because at some point both of those things are kind of commodity software. And most people are just going to be like, well, they both run Windows. Let me just get the cheap thing that runs Windows. So how does Sony solve this problem? It's funny because they've been trying to solve it in televisions for years and failing. And televisions are even more of a commodity than phones or tablets or laptops. You just buy one, you plug your cable box into it. And Samsung's eating their lunch. And I think that the problem for Sony right now is that Samsung is dominating the phone landscape aside from Apple. And they need to find a way to get back in that game. And I think the Z is a really good product in that line of things. And I think the tablet Z is a really good tablet. But I think they need to find a way to tell people that beyond hardware, beyond just having this in your hand and being prettier than other things, it will be more useful and more integrated in your life. And that's always going to be a problem. You know how Sony saves everything, saves the world, wins the electronics industry and our hearts forever? How's that? IR blasters. I think you're fired. I don't think that's fair. You're fired. Anyway, that's our show. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be here next week and every week talking about more cool stuff. Thanks so much to Neil Ipsil for being here. Thanks to Dan Seifert and Justin McElroy. I'm David Pierce. We catch us next week and every week.