Sony’s Robot Vision !

Where’s our robot? For all the troubles Sony may be facing, that was one of the big grudges shareholders had this year: the absence of a chatty humanoid robot to rival Softbank's Pepper.

“It’s so sad that Sony is not making robots anymore,” said Toyoko Kobayashi, a 70-year-old shareholder, after attending the company’s annual meeting of shareholders on Thursday. “I want robots more than cameras,” she said.

While Sony’s lack of a market-leading robot product may be another sign of how the Japanese electronics giant has lost its creative mojo, shareholder calls for robot development are at odds with current attempts to restructure and refocus a company that has lost money in five out of the last six years.

Entering his third year as Sony’s chief executive, Kazuo Hirai has not yet turned around the television business, a once-proud symbol of Sony success that has been mired in red ink for the past decade. His latest restructuring efforts include the sale of Sony’s personal computer business and streamlining of its sales and headquarters functions.

“I take seriously criticism over how many years we’ve been continuing our restructuring. With a drastic shakeup, we will transform our habits of repeatedly lowering our earnings and continuing losses,”  Hirai told shareholders at a hotel in Tokyo.

Still, the nostalgia for Sony’s dancing humanoid robot QRIO and the Aibo robot dog is symbolic of lingering expectations, especially among elderly shareholders that Sony will once again create iconic and memorable products such as its Walkman cassette player and its Trinitron TVs.

Those products are now part of the past, as is the Aibo–launched with great fanfare in 1999 but dropped in 2006, a decision some engineers decried as the death of Sony’s risk-taking spirit.

The creator of Pepper, by contrast, appears to be going from strength to strength. Telecom and Internet giant Softbank last year paid $22 billion to take control of U.S.

carrier Sprint and is now eyeing a bid by Sprint for rival T-Mobile US Inc. as it looks to strengthen its position as a major player in the U.S. market.

SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son showed off Pepper for the first time earlier this month. The company claims it is the first robot that can sense people’s feelings. Softbank plans to begin selling Pepper next year in Japan at a price below $1,950.

“I never dreamed that SoftBank would be a competitor to Sony,” one male shareholder told Hirai. “When I heard SoftBank’s announcement, I thought ‘Wait a minute, wasn’t it Sony that made the first prototype for a robot with communications skills?’”

With its losses racking up and a focus on restructuring, Sony can’t really afford to pour money into robot investment without a clear and fairly immediate chance of strong returns.

Hirai is instead focusing on smartphones, cameras and games — areas where Sony has released popular products recently, including its Xperia smartphone and Cyber-shot RX camera series.

“The most important thing is to bring about innovation in areas within the electronics business where we are competing,” Hirai said, citing the three growth pillar areas. “But it’s a critical theme to consider how we can venture into completely different territories,” he added.

Some Sony shareholders brushed aside Hirai’s repeated vows to rekindle Sony’s creative spirit, saying the many rounds of restructuring are merely driving away talented engineers.

Even attendance at the meeting was low this year. The number of shareholders was below 5,000, less than half of last year’s record showing.

With earnings grim, Sony decided for the first time to cut back on souvenirs handed out to shareholders, who were previously showered with pens, snacks and batteries. Another sign of tough times.

“Sony needs to develop completely new products, but it just seems to be doing what every other company is doing,” said Yoshihiko Ishizaki, a 39-year-old post office employee and investor in Sony shares for three years.