Throughout its storied existence, Sony has been at the forefront of technological innovation and has given us truly remarkable devices like the compact disc, PlayStation, and Betamax (not the street food). Out of all their creations, none is as groundbreaking or influential as the Walkman, which single-handedly revolutionized the way we consume media on the go.
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You were the first one
The Walkman TPS-L2 debuted in July 1979, and was marketed as the world’s first portable cassette player. Nobody in Sony really had high hopes for its new product, yet the first Walkman steadily gained popularity among Japan’s youth. In fact, Sony sold 30,000 units on its first two months–a marked improvement from the company’s 5,000/month estimation.
Rewritten by machine on new technology
As early as 1982, the audio industry was going through a paradigm shift involving a new storage format called “compact disc digital audio.” The CDDA, co-developed by Sony and Philips, was poised to replace cassettes as the industry standard for storing audio data.
Within two years of introducing the CD to the general public, Sony came up with the first Discman called the D-50 or D-5. The device was basically a Walkman that played songs from a CD instead of a cassette tape. The first Sony Discman was a huge hit among consumers and would eventually be rebranded to CD Walkman in honor of its predecessor.
We can’t rewind we’ve gone too far
More than a decade after its successful transition, the Walkman was once again due for an overhaul to keep up with the trend. Unfortunately, by the time the Network Walkman made its debut in 1999, it was already late to the party.
The market was already flooded with portable media players that played songs encoded in MP3, saved on a flash memory. To make matters worse, Sony decided to go against the grain by using their proprietary storage medium called Memory Stick, and their own audio compression algorithm called Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) for the new Walkman.
As you can imagine, these Sony-exclusive features did not sit well with consumers. It didn’t help either that Apple announced the iPod in 2001. It had everything the Walkman could have had: support for the MP3 format, a companion audio library app that doubled as a store to buy songs from, as well as a built-in storage with a 10GB capacity.
Smartphones killed the radio star
As if things couldn’t get any worse for our protagonist, smartphones, and 3G connectivity became a trend in the mid-2000s. All of a sudden, people found it impractical to carry a separate device because their smartphones also had this functionality.
The final nail in the coffin for the Walkman was the arrival of music and video streaming services. Users were no longer limited to the songs stored on their devices–now, they could access a vast library of content on demand.
Put all the blame on VCR
The Walkman was so much more than just a portable music player. It made our long and boring commutes bearable, and our arduous runs less tiresome. It brought about the creation of smaller headphones and is credited for paving the way for the devices and services that we use today.
Devices with the Walkman brand still live on to this day, but it’s a shell of its former self. What was once a disruptive and groundbreaking device is now a niche gadget that caters to deep-pocketed audiophiles who are willing to go great lengths–to the tune of Php190,000–in search of that ear-gasmic listening experience.