It's a real shame Xperia phones aren't doing better, because they're excellent.

There are many reasons Sony phones are not available on any carriers in the US. AT&T got burned when Sony burried the Vita. AT&T had huge plans for Vita and 4G, and they had an exclusive deal with Sony. Sony burned that bridge when they decided to go all in with Xperia. T-Mobile tryed to sell the Xperia Z - Z3, but the thing just wouldn't move units. They had ads for it, they had great deals, but even thought the phones were as good if not better than the iPhone and Androids, they offered nothing unique that made consumers want to switch from their current manufacture. On the Verizon side, you already hit the nail on the head. 

Mobile carriers don't want the Xperia phones, and customers have shown no interest in them even when they have been available. Another Android device is not what people are looking for. If something wants to overtake the current leaders it has to be completely new.

As for how many console they can sell. I think that is roughly around 100 - 120 million. They will sell more units, but active users will stagnate around 80 - 100 million. I highly disagree with PlayStation becoming more of a service than a hardware business. VR requires local hardware, and VR games and videos are the future. 

You are right that Sony has products for everything, but they are not integrated in a way that your average consumer can easily sit down and use each one of them. You are wrong about in company competition. Sony has two digital movie services for 4K content. They have Smart TV's running on Android, and PlayStation running on thier own in house OS. They have Vita versus Xperia, which is just about a battle again with how bad Xperia sales are getting. Their is very little unity between products. They were actually much closer a decade ago when almost every product ran XMB. They need to get back to that unity again, and start marching forward. Android is leaching the life out of every division it is touching.

I have had a Z, a Z3, and an X Performance since Sony fully took over the Sony Ericsson venture. They are decent phones, but they do nothing special, and they are severly limited by Android and carrier compatability. Had Sony carried on With Vita and offered a Slab version of the Vita, they could have a a product miles ahead of where Xperia is right now.

Companies don't stop working together just because they get "burned" if the venture is still profitable (console wars and the like are completely fabricated by fans. That is simply not how the real world actually is, you don't not do business with someone because of a grudge). This is, like I said a marketing/logistics issue and it's without a doubt on Sonys end. The phones never sold hundreds of millions in one quarter because there was no push from Sony to raise product awareness, coupled with they've always had slim to no presence or availability in the US, which believe it or not has a great deal of influence around the world when it comes to setting fashion trends (if Xperia became a hot product here, it would bolster sales elsewhere). Have you ever seen a single Sony phone ad on tv in the last 5 years? I haven't here in the states, not sure where you're from. Despite generally reviewing highly, despite introducing cutting edge features to the market first (Guess who came out with the first viable waterproof smartphone? Sony. Guess who copied them right after? Samsung with the Galaxy S4 active. Guess who has the worlds first 4K display in a smart phone? Sony. CES 2013 - Best Smartphone, Best of Show awards: Sony Xperia Z, the premier flagship for their mobile division. Here's the kicker, CES was held in Las Vegas that year but the Xperia Z would only officially ever come to T-Mobile. The alternative was buying a $630 phone without a contract directly online.

Let me flip this around though. What features do a Samsung Galaxy phone or other various premium android phone offer that would make it "unique" or keep a customer around? Apple is excluded as they are a separate platform, but on android people choose Samsung because of market penetration, a certain "trend" factor and consistency. They always include the latest features while introducing a gimmick or two, launch on all major carriers and then proceed to market the living fuck out of their phones, making people aware that "Hey, I'm a premium product and look what I can do!" We have never seen anything close to that with Xperia and America. Nothing even remotely close. People barely know they exist here, but if Sony would actually inform the consumer that they offer sometimes literally the most powerful phone on the market with cutting edge features available to anyone regardless of carrier, then it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be a positive reaction. There is crazy, massive amounts of growth in that sector and it wouldn't be that hard. They're just a fiscally conservative company and they have to be (which appears to be working)

One of the biggest things to consider is your expectations of a phones OS in the modern world. Keeping that in mind, do you think Sony really has the expertise to design and develop a competent enough mobile OS that will give a Similarily flexible experience to android or iOS? I rather strongly don't think so. I'm not saying they couldn't do it, but it would take years of R&D and it would probably mean launching a buggy crude OS that sorely lacked features at launch. That's no way to grow mobile right now, especially when they lack the capital. It would be like cutting your Achilles heel.

Microsoft has their own phone division too, and actually they happen to run on their own OS. Not much success there. Less than Sony with their phone division actually which runs Android. 

I think the problem is when they launch the phones in America, they are lesser versions than the eu counterparts. I got the XZ recently and found out that in the US, not only did it launch later but it also lacked the finger print reader.

The other big problem with their mobile, TV and accessories division is that they don't take advantage of each other. Samsung will regularly bundle things together such as their Gear Fit, VR sets, watches or offer discounts. Sony can easily pack in discounts for PS4's, give their watch or fitness band, offer speakers, headphones, in America, offer a few months subscription to Vue, offer discounts across products etc but they don't.

One of the best things they did was offer £20 PSN credit with a purchase of the latest Xperia device. I got that with the Xperia Z. This time around buying the Xperia XZ I got a shitty redeem code for Xperia Privilege to download some shitty films. It's an app that's not on my PS4, TV, but strictly on my Xperia and if I had the choice I would delete it.

Between Crackle, Xperia Lounge, PSN Video, Vue, Xperia Privilege, these guys are just making stuff for the sake of it rather than unifying things to offer to consumers.

Why can't they have Vue on Xperia? Whats the purpose of Crackle? Why can't it be merged with PSN Video and become an app available across Sony mobile, tablets, TVs etc?

Companies absolutly hold grudges against each other. Sure they will come back together if they can find something that will work out well for both of them, but the company that did the burning has to have something amazing to turn things around. I have no doubt that Sony could sell better if they had advertised better, but the same could be said for Vita. If Sony had worked with AT&T and made a 4G Vita Phone, they could be in a better position too. The thing is, they ruined the Vita and Xperia. Now they have to try soemthing different, because they are on a sinking ship.

As for Samsungs grip on Android. Well first things 1st, most people find a comfort zone and they don't move out of it. Samsung constantly delivers new features every year that make their products interesting. They offer a wide range of phones that fit many peoples needs, and many of those special phones have no real competition. They have Gear VR which was heavily marketed over the holidays, and it had a special promotion with the purchase of an S7. At this point they have such a hold on Android that really the only ones that could compete is google themselves. Even with the most powerful phone, or the best screen, or Remote Play, Xperia just doens't offer anything different enough to change peoples mind.

 Can Sony make an OS that competes with iOS and Android? Absolutly. They can make an OS, the bigger question is getting apps. I think they can ride games to success as long as they have the basic and most popular apps. Japan will absolutly support a great home grown device over non Japanese tech, and that will help them a lot. They will also do very well in europe based just off the PlayStation name. Once they have the phone in 50 Million peoples hands and devs have access to a userbase over 150 million units between PS Consoles and PS Mobile devices developers will be forced to join in. Then they can make the march to an even larger userbase. 

As far as Micorosft goes, they made the same mistake with mobile as Sony. They did not build on their strengths. That is being addressed with Surface Phone. They have built an Ecosystem where Windows 10 is the backbone of PC, Surface, and Xbox. All apps run across all windows devices. They will do extreamly well going forward, with a sound stratagy that has full support in all aspects.

Very good stuff here. 

Yes, the late launches and missing features add even more burden to a phone that is not tied to any carrier in america. This has been a problem all along with Xperia, because even the fans that keep an eye on the devices are not interested when they arrive 6 months after EU and Japan with missing features.

Sony does a terrible job advertising to exsisting customers and using their products to promote other products they sell. Sony should have a unified store front on every device they sell that offers software and services available for that product, and all other Sony hardware. It has blown me away for 10 years that PlayStation Store deos not sell PlayStation Accessories and other Sony hardware. This is a major lost oppertunity to cross promote. Every Sony device should be running promotions year round to offer discounts Sony products or free content from PSN. 

Then as you pointed out the lack of direction needs to stop. PlayStation is their bread and Butter, they need to get rid of Ultra, Xperia Lounge, Xperia Privilege, and put Crackle content on PS Vue. They need to focus on PlayStation Vue, PlayStation Video, PlayStation Music, and PlayStation Now. These services need to be on all Sony devices, and they to be deeply optimized into the OS for an incredible experience.

Sony needs to run the PlayStation 4 OS on all of their hardware. They need to have the PS4 hardware built into almost every product they ship. The PS4 APU and RAM would be a minor cost for TV's which would greatly improve OS performance (Bravia have a seperate chip for video processing and the OS already). PS4s chipset will be ready for Vita sized devices by 2019. They can start making Laptops or Tablets in the mean time. 

Ultimately, whether I am using my Sony TV, my Sony Reciever, my Sony Console, my Sony Laptop, my Sony Camera, my Sony Handheld, or my Sony Phone, I should have the same experience. All products should have a unified design language, a unified OS design, and connect to one open Sony store that offers content from all creators, that works across every one of my devices.

If its still making money then i don't see the point just yet.

You're right, they do nothing special, but they're still pretty good, and many of them are waterproof, which is neat. Of course in the last few years it's been relatively common with other phone companies as well, so it's not that big of an advantage anymore, but it's still good. And I must say, Sony's phones offer really good value for their price. When I was getting a phone two years back, I think after a good amount of research, I was left with only the Z3 Compact being a good choice for me. Of course if you care about the extra features (such as fingerprint sensor, which I'm personally rather trying to avoid) other companies have better options to offer.

Android isn't a limitation, it's the only viable choice right now. iOS isn't available, Windows on phones is practically dead, and developing your own is a huge and a very expensive undertaking. It's just not realistic without a major shift of focus in a very large part of the whole company, and even then it's a big risk. I don't think Vita would have fit well in the Android environment, and I don't think a lot of people would've been interested in a Vita phone either due to its limited OS. That said, Sony could and should probably handle the mobile division better, and using the other divisions to help the mobile division would be a smart choice. At the very least, Sony should probably make more mobile games, but I'm not sure if even that would help Xperia phones. If the games are exclusive, they're not getting popular, and if they're not, they're not going to help the Xperia phones.

They need to hire us as consultants.