Once upon a time Sony was killing it in the TV market with their beautiful Bravia line, but thanks to increasingly fierce competition from the likes of Korean players Samsung and LG over the past eight years, Sony has been experiencing continuingly declining losses.

This latest report that's come out via Routers certainly doesn't help the situation for Sony, with word that several of its Bravia series LCD TVs manufactured in 2007 and 2008 have been subjected to faulty parts that may cause the TVs to overheat and emit smoke, or melt certain components inside. Lovely.

While Sony has noted 11 overheating incidents solely in Japan, the company has said in a news release that the faulty parts may affect TV sets sold all over the world, although the majority of the ones in the bad batch were apparently sold in Europe and the U.S.

Sony says it is about to alert its customers to this problem via its websites and in some countries via e-mail and newspaper advertisements. The company has also said it will offer free inspection and repairs to as many as 1.6 million TV sets.