The Sony and Samsung competition of zero-sum sum can also be performed in metaverse

In every major race of history – from military commanders and sports legends to soft drinks and R&B divas – the desire to destroy the enemy often obscures the horrors.

And so, for many years that were the most controversial, it was with Sony and Samsung – the two top companies in the world, who got into their own war of attrition. From then on, their methods and skills (one now his eye on cricket in the Indian Premier League, another on and a $ 17bn Texan chip plant) has changed. But the two, says the bankers, also look set to meet again – in practice.

The transformation of Samsung, South Korea’s most valuable company, from the production of humdrum products in the early 1990s to the titanium electronic charger, batteries, cell phones and TVs a decade later was a powerful imitation of its Japanese enemies. .

Samsung’s price tag (as calculated by Interbrand) exceeded Sony’s in 2005, the symbols would not have been clear. Even Sony executives later secretly admitted that a significant TV connection between the two provided a technological advantage.

But, as it turned out, this humiliation was also a time when the competition began to lose its meaning – not because the whole modern universe was moving faster than the race for one person, but because the two companies. only they were walking.

Samsung, whose experiments with software content did not really work, was aware that its future lies in developing tools that can help and bring successive generations of consumer technological innovations. Sony, after a very painful years a place of execution for the sacred cows, he began to see that the vision of his founder Akio Morita of integration and refining of the contents was more feasible than ever in his history.

In recent weeks and months, the differences between Samsung and Sony have been clearly defined – although killings in both cases have left some wondering what could happen next. Last week, when Samsung announced the US city of Taylor as its leading semiconductor portfolio, the currency (Samsung’s largest in the US) represented a firm bet on the company’s technical expertise and what the world seems to want. dissatisfied. News followed of the company to announce of $ 206bn, a three-year plan.

However, while the commitment is huge, Samsung is still a company with a lot of money to spend and, meanwhile, is showing a bit of what it has. A third generation successor, Lee Jae-yong, has just been released from prison, and is expected to release the M&A hunger that grew in his absence. The potential targets, say experts, will be in the memorable chips and other hardware commitments.

Sony, meanwhile, since 2018 has launched what Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal describes as a “global eyebrow raising” with 40 purchases, associations and sports betting. This together has expanded its video game industry, advertising industry, film, video production, TV and music producers – and, in terms of hardware, in specialized sensors. In the last week, it has progressed a contract made is India’s largest entertainment group, Zee.

While some investors choose to complain that this is random and go back to the old days of Sony distributing low-cost stocks, Goyal said, it should be seen as a coherent, transformative concept to continue to be wrong. Sony, which has long owned a Hollywood studio, a major music business and a major PlayStation game empire, is calling for a new leadership.

Although the methods of the two Asian technical groups now look different, they have something that may be equally important. As everyone knows what the metaverse means, and regardless of the form or delivery method it takes, investors are already looking to invest their money in those who can control them.

Sony and Samsung, meanwhile, seem to be solid winners. With all the ambiguity surrounding real world visions, more workplaces and everything else full of new stories, two things seem to be reliable. One is the constant need for more memory devices, more memory chips, more sensors and more displays. Another is the greater integration of entertainment. If the metaverse does not do anything else, it could challenge the fierce competition of zero as a very large team.

leo.lewis@ft.com