I don’t get Sony’s TV strategy

OPINION: I was going to save this opinion for a rainy day, but it’s been a slow news week and I might as well make a fool of myself: I don’t quite understand Sony’s TV strategy.

I can see where it makes sense of the company – sort of, anyway. But I find myself confused as to where it’s heading. I’ll try to explain why in what might be a rambling opinion that spins off on many tangents. You’ve been warned…

This opinion pretty much coalesced during my time with the Bravia 8 OLED. I thought that TV was good enough to earn 4.5 stars. Here’s the thing, though: It’s more or less a slight improvement over the A80L.

High brightness or low?

Now that score is good enough to put it among the best TVs and best 4K TVs. Sony’s picture processing is ace, the design is more accommodating than the A80L, and subtle improvements have been made here and there. But what’s weird is that, according to the measurements I took, in some picture modes it’s dimmer than the A80L. Unless my measurements are wrong, you’d expect a newer TV to be brighter, not dimmer.

It is much brighter than before in its Professional and Vivid modes. But the average person is likely to stick with Standard and Cinema modes, which are dimmer than the respective modes on the A80L. In fact, the Standard mode seems to lose about 300 nits.

And this is from a company that’s championed high brightness HDR as the future of TV. It believes so firmly in this notion that it brought out a new mastering monitor that can display up to 4000 nits of peak brightness. And its Bravia 9 Mini LED can, apparently, hit around 3000 nits peak brightness.

But one problem is that most content being mastered is not high brightness, but low. The most talked-about examples have been episodes of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, but even recently, I was struck by how a film such as Conclave was dimmer than I expected. Cinematographers and mastering specialists are experimenting with darkness and contrast, less so with full-on brightness.

This is another part where this high brightness strategy feels at odds, because you’d assume that Sony would be chasing this brightness across all its TVs. It’s pushed the limits with its LCD and Mini LED models, but has arguably been conservative with its OLEDs.

The Bravia 8 can look bright, but only because of Sony’s excellent picture processing. This has always confounded me, as Sony isn’t a TV brand that’s chased brightness as much as, say, Samsung. Ask Sony reps a question about how bright their TVs are, and you’ll get a wry chuckle. They’re not interested in a spec war.

When it comes to brightness, Sony is just as interested in black levels, contrast, and ultimately, control over how the fidelity of the image.

So yes, Sony uses brightness to feed into picture processing. Its QD-OLEDs weren’t as bright as the competition, but they delivered some gorgeous images.

The Bravia 8 feels like a slicker but rebadged A80L, as if Sony had inventory left over and needed to get rid of it. And this is me guessing, but the Bravia 8 doesn’t look like it uses the brighter OLED EX that the LG C4 and Philips OLED809 have, which, in some ways, makes its performance more impressive.

It has been a long time…

Now we get to Sony’s launch schedule. Sony doesn’t replace its TVs yearly, or even every six months like some brands. It’s settled into an 18-month schedule, not because it’s slow, but because Sony has moved into the premium TV space. Flooding the market every year with expensive TVs doesn’t make sense.

I wish some TV brands took the same approach, but then I’d have less to do…

Nevertheless, 18 months is a long time, but in some cases, it’s even longer. Do you remember the last 42- and 48-inch OLED TV Sony made? That’s because the last 48-inch OLED came out in 2020 – five years ago.

The 42-inch OLED? Three years ago. And that 42-inch is still available and costs £1299 at Amazon UK. Philips has a 48-inch OLED that came out in 2024 and you can get it for £756.

Also, Sony’s focus on appealing to its PS5 base with specific gaming features while most others support both consoles and PC gamers is curious. Rather than appealing to all gamers, Sony seems only interested in a (vertical) slice.

…and times have changed

Whether it’s the approach to its TVs, its release schedule, pricing or features, I’m a little concerned about the direction of Sony’s TVs. They’re all high quality – at least the ones we’ve reviewed are – but times have changed, and it doesn’t feel as the Sony TV brand has the same cachet as before.

I get that it’s not looking to appeal to the masses as it used to, but the masses are seemingly where the sales are happening, even if there’s not as much money to be made. Sony may make more money at higher prices, but it’s selling fewer TVs than Samsung in the UK, which has also pitched towards the premium TV market.

We’re in a time where Chinese TV brands such as TCL and Hisense have put the squeeze on the Korean brands (LG and Samsung), who performed a similar trick on the Japanese brands (Panasonic, JVC, Sony, Sharp) a decade and change ago. The Japanese TV brands haven’t disappeared, but their status has diminished, whether it’s because others have innovated or are less expensive. They risk being squeezed out of the market.

It feels as if 2025 could – or should – be a big year for Sony, but the last few years have been surprisingly quiet. That said, it’s always calm before the storm, so here’s hoping that Sony’s new TV announcements bring the thunder and lightning, God of War style.

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