(photo credit: wonderfulmachine.com)
On July 10th, 2015, Sony officially shuttered their direct store in Palo Alto, CA at the Stanford Shopping Center. Considered the West Coast flagship of Sony Direct, the Palo Alto store, and her staff, worked tirelessly for years to support the Sony brand and take care of every customer that walked through the door. Sony has been closing all its direct stores since an official announcement in March 2015; eventually, the only Sony Direct presence will be the New York Plaza store, with all other retail operations being performed out of Best Buy, Fry's, etc.
This closure truly represents an end of an era, for Sony and, I feel, electronic retail in general. The Sony direct stores always represented the best of Sony domestically - fantastic service, consolidated branding, and centralized service. Kaz Hirai's "One Sony" was no more evident than in Sony Direct stores, with proud employees doing their all to support the brand. The future of Sony retail will remain to be seen. Thankfully, Sony Direct teams continue to work with brick and mortar sellers such as Best Buy to ensure accurate representation of the Sony brand nationwide, and as of this writing the online store at store.sony.com is also still active for those who already know what they need from Sony.
Spurred by the news of the closure, I am bringing back The Sony Spotter. A lot has happened in the last three years, and there's still oodles of Sony movies and productions to get through. Heck, I still haven't finished with Casino Royale!
New updates coming soon and, time permitting, I will be looking to develop a regular schedule to get through Sony movies faster, especially those released on Blu-Ray.
Be Moved.
~The Zeroth Law
