The Sony timer or Sony kill switch is a rumored Switch for Failure inside Sony Products. The real function switch suggests that the Sony Corporation installs a device in its electronics products which causes them to fail soon after their warranty expires, an (illegal) form of planned obsolescence.
While it is unknown whether Sony is explicitly adding expiration devices to their hardware, the "Sony Timer" has also been taken to mean that Sony manufactures devices to withstand just enough use for Sony to produce a new line of the device.
At the annual shareholders meeting held on June 21, 2007 in Japan, the president Ryoji Chubachi said that he knew the word "Sony Timer".
Famous quotes containing the word sony:
“In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system ... has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes.... Now they’re lunch, and we’re number one on the planet.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)