I just realized how big of an influence sony has been

All my buddies keep trying to get me away from my ps3/4 and over to xbox 360/one

I decided to look into sony as a company to see what they were all about.. back in 69 they released a prototype for the U matic. it came out in 71. first proper recording device like a vcr or recorder used by schools and buisnesses and news stations. Then they went on to release beta max instead of VHS. VHS tapes were coined by jvc, sony decided beta was for them. so as far back as home entertainment started sony was at war for the top of the sales board and new design. over the years VHS became dominant and in 1988 sony started producing VHS machines. however beta did not die. sales held in south america and asia. they did not stop making beta tapes until 2002. much like the playstation one was supposed to be for nintendo's SNES to compete with sega cd. but they decided to scrap it and release an n64. so sony took their work and made a psone. if you google it you can find photos of the snes cd. so then DVD comes out and kills beta and vhs.. then HD dvd comes out and nobody can agree on a standard format for everyone. so sony goes ok and releases blu ray. better audio / video quality over HD dvd (same as beta over vhs, and they learned from the beta and had more record time or storage from the start instead of relying on the superior quality alone) and far larger capacity. the playstations systems are free to play online while xbox charges you. sony makes car audio / home audio / cameras / cellphones / computers. I did not realize they played such a huge part in pushing better video recording and quality tho. since the beginning of home entertainment sony has always been the pioneer. their own inventions with better quality then the competition