 In February 1979, Morita called a meeting at Sony Headquarters. The group of predominantly young, electrical and mechanical design engineers, planners and publicity people were more than a little apprehensive, as well as curious, to hear why they had been summoned by the Chairman.
Morita held up the modified Pressman and said,  This is the product that will satisfy those young people who want to listen to music all day. They'll take it everywhere with them, and they won't care about record functions. If we put a playback-only headphone stereo like this on the market, it'll be a hit. He continued by saying, Our target market is students and other young people. We must launch it before the summer vacation at a price similar to the Pressman, which means less than 40,000 yen.
At that time, for sales and accounting purposes, new product launches usually took place on the 21st of the month. To meet Morita's deadline meant launching the product on June 21, which was only four months away. To develop the necessary manufacturing, marketing, and other systems in such a short time was a formidable task.
Most of those present were stunned. We can't do it in such a short time, was the general consensus. However, they were excited about the idea. It was a product they themselves wanted to develop and use and they agreed that a launch before students started their summer vacation would be ideal. Thus, the collective conclusion reached was It's difficult, but not impossible. Let's give it our best shot.
With regard to price, everyone involved with the project thought that instead of working out a price based on production costs, they must first decide on the price at which the product would sell. They believed that if the price could be kept below 30,000 yen, sales would be great, but that 35,000 yen was more realistic from a cost point of view. At this point, Morita said, This is Sony's 33rd year in business, so let's sell it for 33,000 yen. Under Morita's leadership, they decided on a strategy and resolved to launch the product before the summer vacation.
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