Sony Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer, is one of the world’s leading producers of communications and information technology products for consumers and businesses. Sony’s products include batteries, cellular telephones, compact disc players, computers, computer chips, DVD and Blu-ray disc players, radios, televisions, and video game systems. The company also has divisions that produce musical recordings, motion pictures, and television programming. Sony Corporation has headquarters in Tokyo.
Sony traces its origins to 1945, when Masaru Ibuka, a Japanese engineer and inventor, opened a manufacturing facility in Tokyo called Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute. In 1946, Ibuka, together with his friend Akio Morita, incorporated the factory as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The company was renamed Sony Corporation in 1958.
The company produced Japan’s first tape recorder in 1950, and its first transistor radio in 1955. In 1975, Sony produced the first videocassette recorder for home use. The introduction of the Walkman, a portable cassette player, in 1979 changed both the technology and music industries. In 1982, Sony introduced the world’s first compact disc player. In 1994, Sony launched its popular video game console, the PlayStation. The company later released new, increasingly more powerful consoles—the PlayStation 2 (2000), the PlayStation 3 (2006), and the PlayStation 4 (2013). Sony also released a portable gaming system called the PSP (PlayStation Portable) in 2004, and its successor, the Vita, in 2011. Sony was one of the manufacturers that developed the Blu-ray system of high-definition video in the early 2000’s.
