Why Sony can't bring back its classic Walkman models

ChrisArchitect

When I hear Walkman I only think of cassette tape, not MD, but whatever... Minidisc understandably gone away (until maybe hipsters revive that too like they have with tapes?) but on the tape front ... Maxell thinks they have something with cassette players.... wonder if/how these are selling: Maxell MXCP-P100 – wireless cassette player https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497781

sdevonoes

Got it. But then why Nike/Adidas/Quicksilver/etc cannot bring back clothes from the 90s? Buying second hand is not that nice (smells that never go away) and “vintage” places sell min. catalogue buy way overpriced.

jeromechoo

If mechanical time keeping hadn’t made the leap to luxury, I wonder if it would’ve ended up in the same situation as walkmans.

potbelly83

Sometimes reading these articles I can't help but think we've pushed ourselves into a local but sup-optimal maximum technologically speaking. i.e. If we didn't follow the path of trying to stick everything into an iPhone/Android (along with moving everything into the cloud), we'd have a more interesting technological landscape.

trencedamp

This is a really interesting read. But it doesn't answer one question I have, which is why can't Sony or Apple or anyone else bring back decent MP3 players? None of this technology is lost, and there are plenty of small-time two bit no name players out there still making them, often in a much smaller, much slicker form factor than than the original digital Walkman or iPod. If I want to buy a new MP3 player, I have to buy something from a company I've never heard of with a terrible screen, use an old phone, or buy some sort of enthusiast audiophile flac player thing that costs way too much. Why can't somebody take simple smartphone hardware and make a modern media player that is not a phone?

waynesonfire

I disagree. Sony can't bring back Walkmans because a Walkman won't generate the returns Sony demands. Furthermore, they refuse to open-source it so it stays hidden in a vault. Plenty of people would lose money, break even, or God willing, make a tiny profit, diving into this problem. Regardless, it would make society a happier place.

leet-stick-7299

Those things are highly prized by flippers now.

nmstoker

This is sad but no great surprise. What does surprise me a little is how far ranging the "we can't make those parts anymore" argument goes. I thought back to those seriously slim Sony Walkman and Aiwa players people would bring back to school from the Far East and even the basic things like the sliding buttons were better than products have nowadays: they would inevitably be tiny, sleek, yet beautifully engineered to still be easy to push/slide, they'd be metal, often powder coated to match the body, would involve super low tolerances, and have a satisfying quality reminiscent of closing/opening the door of a Mercedes! It feels like we can't even do them justice now... Or maybe it's just the economics?! Either way, what an era that was!

cbmuser

It’s really only economics, there is simply no relevant market for mechanical cassette players that would justify the investment. I don’t think it’s true that the capabilities to make these devices are lost. There are still companies like ALPS that are capable of making the necessary parts. But in the end, the market is too small to justify any investments.

plorg

Article is just a (wordy) recapitulation of this tweet from a former Walkman engineer: https://x.com/akiraa_tanaka/status/2080114490830680500 But fair play to OP, you'd have to bounce it through at least Google Translate to make it legible to the predominant English-speaking HM crowd: https://x-com.translate.goog/akiraa_tanaka/status/2080114490... Still would have been good for the Substack author to link to the tweet rather than just embedding a nearly-too-small-to-be-readable png of a JPEG and six links to the tweet author's X profile.