JAPAN RETAIL NEWS - Inside consuming Japan: Japan retail, Japan market, Japan economy, Japan trends, Japanese people, Japan brands, Japan tech
 
Picture
Sony's long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hit stores in Japan on Saturday as thousands of game enthusiasts lined up early in the morning to be among the first to buy it. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is predicting brisk sales, even though the launch may have missed some holiday shoppers. A successful debut would help the company offset the rest of its struggling business. Sony projects a loss of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year through March 2012, which would be its fourth straight annual loss.
 
 
Picture
Songs For Japan, the unique, star-studded album collection created to help raise money for victims of Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters, continues to benefit the survivors through Japanese Red Cross Society. On the 8th of November senior executives from four major music companies – EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music Group – met with Japanese Red Cross Society Vice President, Yoshiharu Otsuka, in Tokyo to recognise the milestone of $10 million raised and donated from the global sales of Songs For Japan. The occasion was a reception hosted by Frances Moore, chief executive of worldwide recording industry organisation IFPI.
 
 
Picture
Sony recently introduced a trio of new digital photo frames, the HD Series S-Frame. Digital frames may have been that boring gift you bought for your mother on Mother’s Day, which doesn’t even get used, but this new fame is special. It not only lets consumers display their favorite photos, but also comes packed with 1920×1080 HD video playback.
 
 
Picture
It was not without a little sadness that we witnessed the end of Sony's Walkman cassette model last year. Thankfully, the brand still lives on in more modern Sony products. The latest of these was revealed earlier this month, as the company announced its new Walkman B Series. This new Walkman series (the NWZ-B160/B160F) of mp3 players is tiny and available in a wide range of bright colors, they also have a convenient clip on the back.
 
 
Picture
As you can see in the video, Sony’s SmartAR technology took us by surprise with its super slick responsiveness, and the markerless object recognition makes a compelling hassle-free selling point. What’s more, the same clip also shows off SmartAR handling large 3D space with ease - notice how the virtual objects continue to animate even when the original anchor object is out of sight. Sony hasn’t given any dates here, but there’s no doubt that once SmartAR is available to game developers and advertisers, it’ll rake in some nice pocket money for the electronics giant.
 
 
Picture
Sony's CEO dropped a big iPhone 5 hint last Friday, indicating the electronics company may be making a 8-megapixel camera for the iPhone 5 -- if it can overcome production delays caused by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Tokyo-based company's chief executive, Howard Stringer, said that Sony may face delays in getting its image sensors from its damaged facility in Sendi, Japan, to customers such as Apple, because of damage from the recent tsunami and earthquake.
 
 
Picture
Sony Corp. said Thursday it will release two new e-book readers in December as it aims to secure a leading position in the budding domestic market. "We are pleased to announce our entry into the Japanese e-book market as our new business," Nobuki Kurita, president of Sony Marketing, said, revealing a first-year sales goal of about 300,000 units.