Last month, Sony finally unveiled its new Walkman MP3 player, which many had been expecting for some time. People first got a look at the device at CES 2015, but it wasn’t the sleek design or excellent ergonomics that caught people’s eyes—it was the price tag.
The Walkman ZX2 is priced at just under $1,200. Yes, that’s right, twelve hundred dollars.
This latest edition of the Walkman brand is set to ship out in March, though just how many will have been purchased is anyone’s guess. The 128 GB MP3 player is being offered as the audiophile’s choice, a new focus of the music and electronics world. Sony says that they have been working on improving high quality audio technologies for some time, and apparently the new Walkman is the ideal handheld on which to experience the difference.
The previous edition, the ZX1, is still on sale on Sony’s website for the much more reasonable price of $300, which is still a bit high when you think that for the same price, shoppers could instead purchase a new phone or computer, both of which play music, in addition to doing multitudes of other actions.
The ZX2 is running on Android, but the Verge reports that it’s an outdated version, one which was actually introduced back in 2012. It can support apps, but it isn’t meant to act like your phone. By building a product with plenty of limitations, Sony made clear that this device is for one thing and one thing only: to listen to the highest quality music available.
Sony’s online store has eight options in the Walkman section, none of which are particularly cheap, showing that the tech giant has positioning the brand at the upper end of a pricing scale for some time now.
For a long time, Sony has held onto their Walkman brand, even though MP3 player sales have been dwindling for years. The first Walkman was introduced in the last 70’s, and since then it has taken many different forms. In fact, if you want to understand how the masses listened to the music they owned over the decades, look at a timeline of Sony’s signature music player. From cassette tapes to CDs to MP3 players, the Walkman has been there, and it looks like Sony wants to keep it around a bit longer.
The company is taking a bit of a risk with this one, as the thought of owning such a product is out of the question for so many. To begin with, the vast majority of people don’t appreciate true high quality audio as opposed to lower quality files, which are much more popular. Many people can’t tell the difference, and thus aren’t willing to pay for it. Second, most consumers don’t want MP3 players these days, as they already have plenty of other ways to access their music—ones that don’t require them to purchase something new and carry it with them. Finally, as streaming services grow exponentially year after year, even just the idea of owning music is becoming foreign. Sony surely realizes all of this, but the possibility of selling enough of these to make it worth the investment must have been tempting enough.
