"Made in Japan" still carries a lot of weight. I would go out of my way to get an older generation of lens X, for example, if I knew it was made in Japan rather than Thailand, or Vietnam.

While Sony, for example, has had its share of stinkers, prevailing perception has been favourable, for Japanese products, for decades now.

Korean products have only recently established a perception of relative quality.

The Japanese have been dealt a poor hand for this round, 2011 was a disastrous year for them with an incredible 1-2 double whamy.

My money is on them making a comeback.

My money is on the 65" Samsung Plasma TV ($2000), and Hyundai i35 SUV ($26,000).

I bet you will see more and more TVs, Smartphones, Tablets, Cars made in rather Korea than Japan in next few years.

However, I still put my money on Nikon cameras and its lens :-D

Consider this: Your Hyundai will drop half its resell value every couple of years. The Honda, or the Toyota, will fare better, and bottom out higher.

Retail price these days means little. If I decide to buy brand new, I will pay more to pay less, or lose less, later.

On the TV front, I have no argument - Sony went passed its prime ~7yrs ago.

It is very sad. They were the best. No one wants their products in these days. But I still prefer Japanese products.

Well, it's not really that gloomy...

They did screw the pooch with TVs. The Koreans owned them.

They never really had a strong footing in the mobile phone market, so no love lost there.

They haven't lost any of their "glow" in the auto market really, it's just that people now consider Korean cars to be closer peers. The perception still favours the Japanese above all else for reliability. Although, in today's climate, that mostly matters in the second hand market.

Japan still has Sony and Nintendo, so they own the majority of the gaming market.

Sony has been, in many ways, a victim of its own stupidity, what with always trying to push their proprietary formats, but that's always been the case with them.

I still think their biggest problems were the Thailand floods and the tsunami disaster. They'll recover.

You are right +Alex Megremis ! Still only thing I can do is to buy their ware.

I hope that Kazuo Hirai will put Sony back on the first place in electronics.

BTW: I can't uderstand why Sony Tablet is not officialy in Czech republic. I would like to know if it's caused by Sony itself or by enything else related with Czech rep.

+Terrence Miao You'd buy a plasma TV. That's so 2000 :p

+Kieran Simpson I don't expect a plasma TV would last more than 5 years after its lifespan. But it's still good to watch action movie and sports on plasma. The latest LED with 200Mhz frequency TV still can't match plasma in this category :-)

Who is still using Walkman today if there is an iPod? Have a look Nintendo's market share today after Microsoft XBox joined the game. NEC used to make PCs, Sony's monitors, Toshiba's laptops. Where you can find them now? If you can buy a small call made by Korean $5000 less than Toyota Corolla and it looks beautiful, why do you still need to pay more for the loyalty?

These once invincible made-in-Japan products have become or are becoming history. The global manufacturer shift from traditional first tier countries like U.S., Japan, Europe to Korea, China and other Asian countries is likely unstoppable. And this trend is hardly forecast to be reversed.

interestingly, unlike US brands, the Japanese brands stuff are rarely "Made in China", mostly Malaysia and Thailand

based on my experience/observations, even as long back as 2000 (!!) most Japanese brand stuff (cameras, Hi-Fi, electronics) was already shifted to been "Made in Malaysia" predominately... notable exception been only the SLR camera lenses...

refrigerators (and later, cars) - Thailand
only some make/model of "japanese" cars still "Made in Japan"...

interestingly even South Korean brands (e.g. Samsung phones) stuff are also often "Made in China" (!!)

curiously, even inside EU, many (like German) brands are made in Eastern European countries (Hungary, etc)

As an export mainly country, Japan can't devalue its currency Yen, artificially, to compete against weak Korea currency Won because America said no. So that's one reason Japanese electronics and car manufactures move to Southern East Asia countries to hedge against high value Yen.

if a country doesn't have the right to issue its bond (debt), and power to control its currency, this country is the only a chip on the poker table played by the multinational bulge bracket investment banks.