Gadgetory

hey guys it's down at the virgin here at CES 2014 our studio and I'm drying by a very special guest this is Sony Electronics new president and CEO Mike fasulo thanks for joining us oh great to be here you've been on a drop for six days seven days I think today's day seven that would make it to you start on january for any word first and this is your first interview on the job so thank you very much thank you very much tryouts are put on so but you've been it's only for a long time just about 30 years februari will be february2014 will be 30 years Wow what roles are you held it Sonny not all I'm sure there's that many many you know some folks say I can't keep a job but I've had a role starting and actually studied finance so started in finance and went operations to cells did Sony start up for our direct business or direct online and store business in America did it turn around for a media company CMO wow you've been all over the place you want to see him out of selling I was the theme of Sony Electronics you were telling me that the year that's Tony had Taylor Swift at CS that was that was you it was correct you just call her up and say hey we're doing a 3d TV thing he can stop by yeah will you see oresko you don't like what kind of response well that's great but so now you're you're in charge of sony electronics which is sort of the north american kind of gadget division right i mean this is where you guys make the stuff not necessarily the TV studio the movies together this is where you make them we're electronics yeah the electronic system electrons and Sonia is on a tear here at CES actually cause rot I just gave a c-note his keynote and I mean he now it's a live TV service interface live TV service with video on demand he announced a new Playstation online streaming initiatives at stream games right anything and then you had a bunch of announcements yesterday this is it did you feel coming in it this was gonna be a big year a big year of ambition for sony or absolutely that's just a sort of a normal hey what's all the stuff no no this is you know this has been in the plan I mean Kaz is really put together such a within the company he spoke about condo and in Japanese culture they call continents you know passionate emotion not simply technology but how does technology translate to emotion and passion and how do you get that instilled in all of your employees that ultimately out into marketing to consumers and he's just done a phenomenal job in such a short period of time and last year we actually were you know making leading our way in with 4k and other great advancements and this year we're just competences back the product is back and we're looking forward just having a great urine that really getting consumers really excited once I mean there's been a number of kind of product areas that the company has been focused on we've got cameras sitting here and imaging has been a big one 4k for you yesterday was enormous point of focus and then obviously those gaming stuff and then what I was surprised if I was today that he announced its kind of a live this live television service which has been sort of the missing piece here at CS right you always have you guys always having new TVs i always look more beautiful than ever and there's always this well i'm still got kind of a cable box gee what's what's happening with kind of this the sly TV stuff well i think light live TV is you know big announcement today and i won't take that away from cuz he's speaking with you a little bit later and i'll let him get into more detail but it really goes to you know giving customers choice availability content we own content companies but you know we want to provide content as broadly as possible and as easily as possible this is another way to do that and the live space as well as the gaming space yeah so I mean if anybody could do that that should be Sony and now we are right and so let's talk about that contents of so you announce new 4k TVs I will say it's interesting that everybody else here has their curving their TVs this way you've remained flat which you know I I struggle to see the value of the curved displays I think they're very interesting technologically the school that they can build them I haven't old why but you're making wedges why are you guys doing ledges so so the wedge is this tuple the design is just fabulous oh yeah if you look at the design it's whether it's hung on the wall or honest and it's just the fabulous design but it also gives you more immersive sound so in the wedge as it wedges to the bottom we actually have tweeters in there and woofers in there that give you a much clearer quality of sound and makes it more immersive in addition for the best picture quality not 4k so so we're actually good this year will be bringing out nine new 4k television models yeah and the flagship was our 85-inch not model that I showed that last evening I also showed the wedge 79 inch but where we're trying to attract all the get every passion from the consumer addressed and how they want to enjoy content you know make the quality I as important and audio as it is in movie watching yeah we're video video so so but that's I mean that's the open question right you've got beautiful 4k TVs the industry's figure ants or what form factor is going to work best for them I think that's always very interesting but the open question I think has been distribution how are you going to get content from the cameras you guys make the cameras how are unique content from the cameras and studios we're making it already to the consumer and that's been basically ? but you guys announced some partnerships and you're feeling kind of confident about that I talked quite a bit about that last evening and it's very pleasing to see that all your cameras or sony camera thank you very much we did that just for you we swap them out everybody sixty percent of the industry has it just for us but thank you thank you anyway oh yeah so if you look at it from a a you know the Holy Grail is his distribution reduction in distribution and with 4k it goes well beyond the panel and from a consumer perspective I think they need to be aware of it's more than the panel so when you're looking at televisions it's the technology that goes into the television beyond the panel that can make that really wow factor that Cavs talked about today in viewing I mean 4k you can get two inches to the screen and no pixelization right and with with Sony's triluminos technology with our x-reality pro technology or motion flow technology which consumers don't really care about the technology but what it does is it gives you life like colors I mean you can see that this face is clear as they yeah and in for I don't want anybody looking about rationing that's what I was going with mine thank you for picking that pack of that one up for upscaling as well so we're with our 4k televisions anything any Content 4k high-definition looks better right but I so i think that there's but your partner gesture that you announced were Netflix YouTube 500 pics ESPN those are all internet delivery services right is that how it's going I see that as being a huge disruptor to the industry right it's there's classic television which you know Fox still 720p right I they're not going to make the jump in broadcast to 4k tomorrow you're not going to get a football game in 4k tomorrow well you're going to deliver it over the air but football game is interesting because I also spoke spoke a little bit about our 55 cameras yeah right which-- our 4k broadcast cameras that are shooting content in 4k but it's not all being delivered back for k so with pork and getting four times the resolution you're getting more information so instant replays for sports you can actually see more content you see more data where they're doing that right there doing the big sale in this right so there's multiple applications very different than then possibly 3d right there's multiple applications from the production distribution side as well whether it's TV blacklist very popular TV show is being shot at 55 right now cameras we talked about hulu is using our cameras we brought on Reed Hastings last evening yeah he's great reads everywhere yeah he working but what did he say about the Sony relationship he talked about our televisions and these were his words that our televisions had the fastest response rate when he looked at delivery of for that content of the television right so you know he's a creator in a distributor so that was that was a big nails but he you know when I say he's everywhere I mean he he's Netflix it's sort of the key right there the the major content service that everybody has that will deliver for Kate first and that to me that's internet delivery so I look at a Sony 4k TV and the first thing I think is well now the netflix is 4k this will be useful to me is that is that how you think of it too is in obviously you guys run your own service but netflix has such broad appeal and everybody already has it that they they're buying the tvs that can turn it right on is that how you're thinking about distribution of content or there are other pieces yes to both okay so what we're thinking about is you know Cal's again talked about condo and emotion and and wow we're thinking about the passions consumers passions passions or music passions or watching video pash passions or I talked about action cam an extreme sports right so where there's a consumer passion how do we deliver that in a more immersive exciting experience so if you think about it from from TV viewing whether that's watching TV shows or whether that's streaming through netflix content from your netflix account or streaming through sony entertainment network or we talk about gaming today at aquino whatever the passion is for the consumer how do we make it not only accessible and easily delivered into their home or on the go but also of the highest quality and i don't want to under estimate our desire to provide highest quality because that really gives you the best experience and so you know you announced like the quality thing to me i made a joke during a live blog i'm going to admit it to you you were announcing high res audio and i made a comparison sacd which was a sony super audio CD that was announced and all the artists loved that the music industry love it and i went nowhere with consumer and now you've got high res audio which you're doing up sampling of compressed audio you've got kind of reference speakers and systems is that different mean tell me why that's different than other high end up because I would consumers are buying crappy headphones because I like the way they look right yeah we're basing them on phones and maybe don't have the best audio converters in and you're saying well you got to step up to this next generation of audio the hall replacement headphone business is great because the headphones but now with what's different here is there's a number of things different one is its industry led right so there are other leading audio companies jumping on board and to it cuts across different life styles different life segments so it's premium quality audio for an audio enthusiast but it's also better quality audio from point of view of mp3 or access to tracks right so we're hitting all the generations audio is a passion yeah across all generations and we're providing products to them that are meaningful and relevant to how they live their life and so it's not a box in a room right it's meant for whatever application we have a lifestyle that consumer user so we're all excited about high res audio the artists I just said a real excited last night I talked about say something with you know Christina Aguilera yeah and this is something you guys can do because you happen to have sony music on the back end I mean it is this like you know cos always talks about one sony right you've got all these divisions is this something where you've worked with them or did you just present it to the industry how does that kind of work when we work really closely internal even though we're separate separate entities internally you would never know that we collaborate work really well together but we're also understanding that you know customers want choice yeah and and they want assortment so we don't limit it only to Sony entities but we can start a lot of good initiatives and really move things from an industry point of view and lead because of that because of those components that we have whether it's imaging gaming music television movies content right devices so do you think consumers are going to you know I think that the disruptive thing that happened in audio was convenient right in the Walkman was a kind of the first iconic piece of convenient audio and then equality went up and then obviously mp3 came in itunes came and convenience exploded right and sony has been coming back and back and I you guys make phones that are obviously did you really play back what's the next big disruptor and audio do you think it's high res or is it something else I mean it does that have the same power or do you think consumers are going to stay with convenience or quality well I think I don't think you can separate them I think it's got to be both right so you know we're putting all of our core technologies that have made the best quality televisions cameras audio devices now into our smartphones and this is the actual smartphone that Kony massa presented last night Cody Moscow Suzuki the z1s which will be available through t-mobile in the United States and this has all of our core technologies in it so it's got the highest quality apps that you want to use without its imaging music listening but it makes it convenient right so you convenient on-the-go and when you're in your home or your in your favorite room we've got products that were compatible right then you can sit and put on a pair of headphones and enjoy high res audio you know in your space that you desire so what's interesting about that phone is it sitting next to one of your cameras yes and this you know phones of particularly your phones have excellent cameras of them right and lots and lots of something the industry's figured out that excellent cameras and cellphones or differentiator it sells a lot of products how do you mean that that's your new alpha this is the API pills you've rebranded it from next with what's going on there so you know we're building we'd be a tremendous success with alpha we had tremendous success with the NEX 5 and the 3 and 6 and so on but we're trying to come up with a branding that consumers can could really you know get on board with and they've really got on board with alpha threat more so than next thanks more so but it it's time for us to bring it together as a single brand because it speaks to the capability of the product well it used to be that where your DSLR israeli a mirrorless that's right and now they're just kind of yeah well and when we you know got into the DSLR business we got into it with the Alpha Brandon and now we've integrated the imaging that one we call alpha or a series and this this is this is sweet camera this is the a 5000 I show this last evening and this is about a six hundred dollar retail mm-hmm so it's an affordable camera but it's it's just jammed with technology and features it's you know it could be professionals it's the lightest the world's lightest apse cow so it can be a professionals dream for yeah I know a lot of journalists use next three is there go to yeah also for the casual users that want to step up their game so it's affordable and my question is is that the future of sort of Sony imaging right these kind of step up bigger lenses bigger sensors because this is killing the phones are killing your point you marking arthas so yes bigger sensors better quality is where we stand but don't forget I didn't bring it I should have brought it don't forget we had the QX lens style camera which for a camera company is disruptive right right we make digital the DSC cameras on point and shoot cameras we make yeah handycam 4k we make alpha we moving from maniax today series so you know there are times when disruptive matters and it's something you should embrace rather than you know hide from but so do you see that as a companion to sort of the phone like when you're when you're looking at somebody who has a great phone camera how do you sell them feel elated that's great we know i'll be home i'm a bit on a camera nerd there used to be that you're at a flip phone and you needed a camera so you went and bought a sunny pointe shoe for 249 and 349 right now you've got a pretty great camera on your phone they provide a sony phone right how do you how do you tell the consumer that they need this as well because you know this is really convenience and access when you were talking about earlier about accessibility and convenience so you're going to get really great photos off of the Sony smartphones but when you're really trying to get into you know different viewing angles and different effects and really taking photos and around the passion of photography this this is the beginning of a camera you want to get into it right i mean and then you really go to a whole other level when you can end your the camera nerdy buying a camera yeah this happens to sugar like chicken suits were to do what I can we appreciate it I'm a big supporter of Sony if you've got a lot of money we have so many products for you to buy this year that you didn't actually I want to talk about that a little bit there's you guys announced a lot of products yesterday and then cause at a keynote today and add some more product what I'm missing to be very and we talked about this a little bit 41 on the air what I'm missing is so nice to have spectacle used to have Taylor Swift and sparkles and you were in charge of that and then you guys have made a decision to kind of really focus and kind of just announced products what does that prep kind of period like for you as you decide what you're going to do at CS so this year we're really looking at focus on the consumer I mean we've always been focused on the consumer but the wow factor that Kaz is talking about is what we're delivering in technology that makes a motion with an summer so we have a music company we have a television company pictures companies so we can bring artists and the sorek as is keynote yeah we brought Vince Vince out and and that's that's great but unless the consumer can actually get that feeling that through what we're delivering to them then it just becomes las vegas on a show yeah right so what really when we're focused on we do have a lot of new products but they're very focused you know focused around 4k for quality and premium and an immersive focused around high res for getting those sounds that music the way the artist intended it to be focused around imaging to really give consumers that ability to feel you know get the emotion out of their favorite photos and really step up their game from this point and shoot so it's really built around very distinct passions and then going deep within those passions content is king I said it last evening right and we'll continue to bring artists sell yeah bring films out but the delivery of them to the consumer ease of access and interoperability that is really what we're focused on and I hope hopefully you saw that through last night's presentation yeah I mean next year you gotta bring Taylor shows that yeah that's a promise I want to hear I just looked funny standing that's not so one last question it's this is the rapid fire and we totally gotta wrap up here you're busy man and it's just sort of kind of a random one it's throwaway cannot answer if you want to but what when do you think kind of mainstream adoption of 4k will come what's your timeline cuz this is kind of the first wave of it's all going to happen yeah we both thought this year well it's not to share although you know i was around 29 years we were around for a couple of paradigm shifts yeah i was around for HD about adoption as well and we're seeing 4k adoption much faster than HD and this is not inside a 50 sure inside a three and one do you think prices with the mainstream price points as as mass adoption occurs there'll be efficiencies of scale you're going to see this year there are more affordable products in the market a broader line of products in the market but I again caution the consumer understand what you're buying do your research go out get an experienced a demonstration at retail before you make the final purchase because there's 4k panels that were true 4k panels but they're not going to deliver the same experience of a brand like Sony that puts all the engines and technology behind it they all they all just just the panel oh I wouldn't get any time to talk about the 4k handycam well I just got to take this talk about it later so I was hoping you wouldn't notice it still here wait you want a 42 k before that's your line this well I 2000 me too yeah I 10 i did and you're looking at but it wouldn't sound good for K 499 14k it's not bad this is for I think you said beginning kind of filmmakers students hobbyists yeah I mean you can use this to you know to film festival you can use it for recitals weddings vacations you know it's it's it's a phenomenal camera shoot in 4k can shoot in HD surprisingly small its class yeah and it's got a 1-inch CMOS sensor in it which which again is the larger chip and I believe I can't think of another camcorder that size with that size chip in it so it's full of great technology at an affordable price yeah you're gonna leave it here Burke you all see how is fan sauce for my kitchen great to have you thank you so much for a diversionary of us we look forward to many more yes enjoy class you too