Tech
Sony turns out the lights on its first big bet of the century and brings an era to an end
The move will not affect the production of video games and movies in physical format for the time being.
Another blow to the physical format, and this is one of the hardest for collectors to swallow. After laying off hundreds of people from the physical format department in the summer of last year, Sony has decided to stop manufacturing Blu-ray discs as of mid-February. This means the withdrawal of the recordable discs, but even more, the Japanese company announces that there will be no successor model, in what represents an almost definitive stab at the physical market.
Farewell to Blu-ray and the physical format, more in question than ever before
“We will end production of all models of Blu-ray Disc media, MiniDiscs for recording, MD data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes as of February 2025. There will be no successor models,” Sony said in the official release. “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our many customers for their patronage to date.”
The MiniDisc was a new attempt by Sony to establish itself as the absolute leader of the digital physical format, anticipating the audio quality of a CD with a size smaller than a cassette tape, managing to gain a foothold in Japan, but failing in the rest of the world as it was not much less a cheap format. The fate of Blu-ray was very different, winning by a landslide over Toshiba’s HD-DVD in a contest in which PlayStation 3 played a key role.
Back in 2015, Dutchman Kees Schouhamer Immink, considered the father of the Blu-ray format, predicted the end not only of this format, but of any physical format, predicting that streaming and the cloud would be the future. Despite the gloom of the news, it should be clarified that this will not affect the production of movies and video games in physical format for the time being.
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