Sony has been at the forefront of video cameras in the past few years. It’s also great for photos but if you look at the Youtube scene, it’s dominated by sony. Even for more professional work, Sony is great too with their amazing line of cameras. But there’s one big problem with Sony. It’s not about their colors or any other camera feature. It’s a problem only in Japan.
If you buy a Sony camera in Japan, for some God-forsaken reason, you can’t change the language. It’s only got Japanese. The cameras up until 2017 have this hack where you can update the firmware and get other languages. But for the ones after 2017, there’s no solution. This sucks. This makes no sense. This sucks not for just non-Japanese-speaking people in Japan. This sucks in terms of resale value. If you buy a camera here you can only resell it here or find someone abroad who wants a only Japanese camera for some reason.
For the past two weeks, I have been searching for a Sony ZV-1 that has the English language on it. I only found one on mercari. That one was overpriced compared to the Japanese versions on mercari. But I still considered it. I kept it in mind. I monitored its price. I tried to negotiate but the seller wouldn’t change much. I was going to purchase it, but today it was gone. Someone else bought it. That was the only one available online. Now if I want an English one I have to buy from international sites and have it shipped here which will increase the overall price.
So yeah, that’s why I am talking about the Sony problem today. Some Japanese companies take decisions that make no sense. Sony is at the forefront. It’s not only their cameras. They take weird decisions with their other devices like smartphones. I hope someone speaks some sense into them and they start becoming a smarter company.