Why Are We Talking About the Sony “Kill Switch?”
By Jared Newman | Monday, January 25, 2010 at 4:22 pm
In what looks like an example of staggeringly bad journalism, the Telegraph ran a story on Sony’s mythical “kill switch,” or “Sony Timer” — a Japanese urban legend that says Sony products are timed to fail shortly after their warranties expire.
My problem with the article isn’t the urban legend itself — almost two decades old, the myth is fascinating in that it applies only to Sony products — but that it pretends to be a news story while offering no new information whatsoever. The story, by Hunter Skipworth, has not a single statistic, quote or recent piece of evidence to back its claim that “many” Japanese people still believe in the Sony Timer (and how many is “many,” by the way?). Nonetheless, Wired, Engadget and CrunchGear picked up the story without questioning its validity.
Much of the article is rooted in things that occurred four years ago, such as the 2006 recall of 4.1 million Dell laptops containing Sony batteries, and an issue with Bravia TVs that gave them just 1,200 hours of life unless patched. Skipworth says the rumor persists in manga comics and Internet message boards, but he links to no examples, recent or historic. He cites comments from Sony executives that date to 2006 and 2007, saying that the myth is hurting the company, but didn’t bother to get an update for 2010.
It’s also worth noting that an article on the blog Pink Tentacle, which predates the Telegraph article by nine days, has several of the same anecdotes. However, that article does not pretend to be news; the blog clearly states that the post is part of weekly series on Japanese urban legends.
I’m not disputing the urban legend’s prevalence in Japan, nor am I testifying for or against Sony products’ longevity. But the Sony Timer is a 20-year old myth that picked up legs four years ago thanks to a couple incidents. If you’re going to bring it up again and present it as new information, some actual new information is essential.
7 Comments
Read more:
7 Comments For This Post
January 26th, 2010 at 12:38 am
I think they meant Samsung, instead of Sony…
January 26th, 2010 at 10:40 am
I am a servicer of Sony products in the US, and I can tell you without a doubt that their failure rate after 1 year is no worse and is usually better than most others. I can’t give you a statistic, but just based on my experience with Sony and competing products I can say their reliability is not in question. What’s more, unlike most of their competitors, Sony goes out of their way to accommodate customers who would otherwise be out of warranty and often extend warranties for products when they could probably get away without doing so.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Okay so what you’re telling me is that the Telegraph is a joke that doesn’t do it’s research and then plagiarizes blog articles almost wholesale.
Duly Noted.
January 26th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
It may be a “joke”, but it certainly has an element of truth to it, particularly when it comes to Sony’s line of rear-projection LCD TVs:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Have-a-Defective-Sony-TV/182875766612
January 26th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
You mean the LCD rear-projection TVs that are still being covered by Sony years after their original warranty expired? TVs break, if they didn’t, I’d be unemployed, the question is what the manufacturer does when there’s a problem. Sony is still taking care of customers with problems years out; try getting a warranty extension on a Polaroid set.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
You are right… anyway it is true that many, if not the majority, of Japanese people belive to the “Kill Switch” (not as a real device but as a design tecnic focused on limiting the life of an electronic device)…
June 12th, 2011 at 7:21 am
Sony Kill Switch is very famous in Japan. is called "Sony Timer" in Japan.
Sony's Products are very fragil…. http://www.toyokeizai.net/business/strategy/detai…
This is the report for about Sony Products, Employee Sony does not believe the Sony's Products Quality…
Emploee think that the quality of Canon and Panasonic is more excellent.
Now Japanese doesn't buy the Sony product any longer.
Sony's Products are for Lady or Chiled.