The physical media scenario is slowly becoming obsolete, especially with digital streaming and gaming media dominating the current market. As a result, many companies are abandoning physical media. Finally, Sony of Japan has decided to follow suit by ending the production of recordable Blu-rays. Here are the details…
Sony is bringing an end to an era!
Sony Storage Media Solutions plans to end Blu-ray production next February. Production of recordable MiniDiscs, MD-Data and MiniDV cassettes will also be duly discontinued.
It’s worth noting that the company mentioned during the announcement that “there will be no successor model” for these products. So the shutdown is definitely more of a retreat than a plan to bring in advanced technology or anything like that.
Another point that might be confusing is that this change will only affect recordable disks, famously known as “blank CDs”. Blu-rays of movies and games are not affected.
Sony’s discontinuation of recordable disk production is something the company has been signaling since last year. The company originally told Japanese channel AVWatch that it would “gradually discontinue the development and production of writable optical disks.”
Sony was a strong name in Blu-ray disk production in the early 2000s. Recently, however, we’ve seen a gradual decline and the main “culprit” is increasing technological advances. What do you think about this development?