Sony was founded on May 7th 1946 by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka as Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha, abbreviated to Totsuko "Tokyo communication industry enterprises". The company built Japan's first tape recorder. The production focus was soon on the entertainment industry, with the breakthrough being based on an American license of the transistor radio. In 1958, the company was renamed Sony. The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word "sonus" which is the root of the word sonic and sound and the other word was "sonny", an American slang word for a smart young man.
In the sixth world Sony is a long-lived AA corporation whose name is synonymous with consumer electronics and entertainment. The Sony name is immediately recognizable by most denizens of the Sixth World, just like in the Fifth World. While sometimes the company's failed risky attempts to maintain themselves at the edge of the tech curve have invited takeover attempts, Sony has so far managed to maintain its own independence without being taken over by larger megacorporations, and it is the 7th largest corporation in Japan. The Sony Headquarters is in Tokyo (and is a major tourist attraction), and the CEO is Tokie Hara. Subsidiaries of Sony now include Chrysler-Nissan, Sony Automation, Sony Biotech, Sony Cybersystems, Sony Dataworks, and Sony Entertainment.
In the early 2060s the company was quite successful due to some very popular products, and after the Matrix Crash of 2064 Sony acquired Chrysler-Nissan rejuvenating that flagging company. Sony has also recently been cooperating closely with Mitsuhama in the field of drones, as well as in other areas, such as single-seater vehicles, the joint efforts of these two strong Japancorps make them both strong competitors in those fields.
Index[]
- Corporate Enclaves, 72-73
- Emergence, 30
- Shadowrun Third Edition, 28
- Shadowrun Fourth Edition, 27
- Shadows of Asia, 8, 14, 74, 81, 187, 196
- System Failure, 102, 119
- The Rotten Apple: Manhattan
- Unwired, 185