Sony timer

Although there had never been any conclusive evidence which would confirm the legend, many Japanese people believed its existence, and it was regularly used as a joke in comics and posted on online message boards.

[1] The legend remained confined to Japan until 2006 when there was a recall of over 4 million Dell laptops equipped with battery packs containing defective Sony lithium ion cells, bringing back the legend of planned obsolescence among the Japanese people, who accused the Tokyo company.

In addition to this, Google Trends signaled an increasing number of Internet searches indicating how Japanese purchasers found various problems with Vaio laptops.

[1] A worsening of the situation occurred when, officially due to a software bug, it came to light that many Bravia televisions were predisposed with an operating time of about 1200 hours before they stopped functioning;[1][3] Stranger still was that, used for a period of about 3 hours a day, such televisions would stop working exactly after warranty expired.

[5][6] Following outcry over the issue, Sony released a firmware update for the PS4 in late September 2021 that resolved the problem for this console,[7] and did the same for the PS5 over a month later.