At the time early media players were relevant, and to the community they were relevant (people very into music tech), Sony was known as "that company that installs rootkits on your computer if you buy their CD"

Sony was known as one of the big several well respected Japanese electronics manufacturers. The Sony Walkman was huge as a cassette and then CD player.

IIRC Sony were an absolute mess at the time. Didn't want to cannibalise their Minidisc sales, had weird DRM... even in the geeky crowds I ran in (where Nomads definitely were seen) Sony MP3 players were a rarity.

Agree, they were really big on the Minidisc players at this time (I had one).

My recollection is that Sony's Memory Stick based products of this era all had weird DRM requirements that were a big hassle.