Last month, LG confirmed it would discontinue all its Blu-ray players. Despite the format's advantages in audiovisual quality and offline playback, the world continues to favor streaming, prioritizing access to content over ownership. Unfortunately, we have more bad news: Sony will conclude production of recordable Blu-ray discs when it closes its last factory in February. At the same time, it said there would be no successor, and it will also withdraw its magnetic storage solutions.
There is certain difficulty in defending optical formats that in the best case reach 128 gigabytes, when a 256 GB USB drive does not exceed 20 euros. Neither can durability be highlighted as a supreme advantage, since 'disc rot' is no myth. But CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs have become an alternative to streaming (not to say a 'refuge') that bombards us with price increases and unexpected changes to its catalogs.
Most users still prefer the convenience of platforms, perhaps without realizing that this convenience is becoming mandatory. And that leads to strategic changes like the one announced by Sony Japan in the last few hours. Through a very brief statement, the company confirmed that it will no longer produce recordable Blu-ray discs as of February, closing a cycle of almost two decades.
Sony to Halt Recordable Blu-ray Disc Production
Looking back, this exit had already begun in July of last year, when Sony anticipated the interruption in the development and production of recordable optical discs 'for general consumption', keeping a production line for corporate clients. The Blu-ray prototype dates back to 2000, while the first movies in that format—among them The Fifth Element, xXx, House of Flying Daggers, and The Terminator—hit shelves in June 2006. Blu-ray won the format war when Toshiba threw in the towel with HD DVD in February 2008, and from then on it established itself as 'king' of the optical world.
That last point is the most curious. To be honest, we must recognize that Blu-ray discs never achieved the adoption rates we saw with DVDs, which were absolutely massive from every point of view. And they won't be alone in their retirement: MiniDiscs for recording, MD Data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes were also mentioned in the statement. The final detail is that there will be no successors of any kind. Now, it is supposed that the retirement of recordable Blu-rays should not harm the release of movies, series, and games, but the news makes one thing clear: The times have changed.
Access the statement (Japanese): Click here Source: Tom's Hardware
