PlayStation Acquires Gaming Headphone Company Audeze - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2023 / 6,312 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced it has entered an agreement to acquire audio technology brand and high-end gaming headphones company Audeze.
PlayStation says the acquisition will strengthen their "efforts to continue innovating when it comes to the audio experience of PlayStation games."
Audeze will continue to operate independently and develop for multiple platforms, while also benefiting from being part of the PlayStation ecosystem.
"Audeze is a premier brand for headphones, and this acquisition highlights Sony Interactive’s focus on innovation and providing the best audio experience to PlayStation players," said Sony Interactive Entertainment Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino.
"We’re excited to bring Audeze’s expertise into the PlayStation ecosystem, building on the great strides we’ve made with PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech and the Pulse 3D wireless headset."
Audeze CEO Sankar Thiagasamudram added, "Sony Interactive provides Audeze with a unique opportunity to scale our business, as we continue with our mission to deliver best-in-class headphones to recording professionals, audiophiles, and gamers. We’re also looking forward to contributing to Sony Interactive’s efforts to take PlayStation audio experiences to the next level."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Playstation? Not Sony? Weird. I mean Sony make pretty good headsets and sound technology already but if the idea is to specialise, I guess that can't hurt.
It's PlayStation and not Sony because this is specifically "Gaming" headphones. Not to be compared with Sony's high end WH-1000xm5 line of headphones that are more for Music.
Audeze's products are generally of much higher grade/quality than Sony's noise cancelling headphones. XM's are midrange and aren't even close to Sony's best, they're just their most popular.
I didn't even know Audeze made gaming headphones until now lol. I knew them primarily for their midrange and highend planar headphones.
Audeze also have phones for audiophiles and recorders. But maybe Sony will integrate them to the console business that is doing better than the others but still use their knowledge to their music geared phones.
In my opinion, the key reason why sony acquired audeze as audeze has decent market share within the medium and high end part of magnetic planar headphones, Sony didn't have any headphones with planar magnetic drivers until recently (the newly announced PlayStation explore wireless and new version PlayStation pulse headphones), while sony do have high end audiophile grade headphones, MDR-z1r and MDR-z7m2, they are of the traditional dynamic driver type headphones not magnetic planar driver.
For us dummies what's the difference between the two types and what are the differences when it comes to their sound profiles .
Both has advantages and disadvantages, planar magnetic has more immersive sounds and possibility of better imaging, also better response in bass but it's heavier and require more power to drive, harder to drive as well which suggest need to use an amplifier, also they are open type driver so poor isolation
Dynamic driver, better precision in detail, closed versions have better isolation and can be used in noisy environment, most dynamic driver are very easy to drive and much lighter in build so more comfortable
Thanks for the info 👍
Their headphones has battery life of up to 80 hours wireless!
Still wonder why Sony doesn’t allow the pairing of headphones direct to the ps5. Perhaps the rumoured “pro” version of the console will.
With that in mind, can’t see the logic in buying this company. All their devices could I presume already be used and not sure what it brings to their headphone division that they don’t already have.
That is one pointless expenditure for us gamers but maybe for the corporation it may be good.
Sony HQ talking to Playstation Division, damn Xbox got ABK despite our best efforts to thwart it, Playstation replying don't worry son we've got your back , Sony you have? Playstation yep we've gone and trumped them , Sony wow wee, please tells us who, was it Take Two , EA or maybe a Capcom, Square -Enix, Sega combo. Playstation nah better than that Sony better than that ! tells us before we pee our pants in excitement Playstation drumroll Audeze. Sony at this moment you should go to the nearest shrine or temple an offer up lots and lots of prays to the god of good luck, since at this very moment you should feel very very lucky that you happen to be our most successful division.
I don't know why you got downvoted, it was a great joke.
I suppose it's human nature to assume that because you're poking fun at any of the big three console makers it's because you have an agenda and you must be a fanboy of a rival console, rather than someone who simply having some fun with this buyout due to it occuring at a time where there is a lot of speculation in the media and gaming arena about how and in what way Sony will react now that ABK has passed the regulators.
You know me but to those who don't, if they look at my profile they would see I'm a long time multiplatform gamer who happens to use PS as his main platform also if they followed the ABK takeover on this site they would also know that I have argued against the ABK acquisition , or maybe they have done all the above but don't have a sense of humour.
eliminating competition, lol
Does Sony have a big marketshare in the high-end headset market?
In the middle portion of the market, they have a significant presence. They are not a big factor in very high end audio.
Semiconductors are all dominated by Samsung and TSMC, which is literally the foundations of all modern technology.
For example, whilst Sony builds extremely solid CMOS image sensor chips, it needs to source logic chips from Samsung or TSMC to provide the processing needs for those chips.
The failure of Japanese technology giants to innovate and lock down the tech market is why it left the doors open for Apple to walk in with the iPod and become one of the largest companies in the world... Which is... You guessed it. Powered by Taiwan and Samsung made chips.
Conversely, LG and Samsung managed to walk in and take massive marketshare away from Phillips, NEC, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp in consumer electronics.
LG for example tends to make some of the best OLED TV's on the planet.
There was a point in history where if you were buying an electronics device, it was likely made or designed by a Japanese manufacturer.
Obviously Japan has managed to hang onto things like CMOS sensors and a few parts of the Audio market and the gaming market, but they are nowhere near as dominant as they once were.
Thanks, so I wouldn't say this move is removing competitors, more like they are acquiring knowledge to help them getting a entry into the high end market perhaps using their expertise on scale to make it more profitable as well on audeze products.
I don't know about their commercial/sales performance on the highend market, but Sony does make some of the best highend closed-back headphones and IEM's. Audeze are more known for their open-back planar headphones, the best of which can get stupidly expensive.
Sony's Z1R is considered by some audiophiles as the top closed-back headphones, same goes for classics like the R10. Audeze seems like a smart acquisition because Sony isn't known for gaming or open-back or planar headphones where Audeze excels.
Yeah, I must be wrong about that. Looks like Sony does have a significant presence in audiophile headphones. I think they've lost a lot of market share in the last 10 or 15 years. I thought they had largely left the market. But, I see that they still have quite a few headsets in the $1000+ portion of the market.
