Sony is officially ending production of recordable Blu-rays. In an announcement from Japan spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Sony Storage Media Solutions said it will stop manufacturing the discs in February, alongside recordable MiniDiscs, MD-Data, and MiniDV cassettes, adding, “there will be no successor models.”
This discontinuation doesn’t impact the Blu-rays you can buy with films or TV shows on them; it just affects the blank ones consumers use to record stuff on themselves with PCs or DVRs. Sony hinted at the discontinuation last year, telling the Japanese outlet AVWatch that it would “gradually end development and production of ‘recordable optical disc media.’’
Sony has helped lead the production of Blu-ray since the very beginning. In 2000, the company showed off the first Blu-ray prototypes and later revealed its Blu-ray disc recorders in 2006. Like Sony, LG, Samsung, and Oppo have also started backing away from the format by ending the production of Blu-ray players.
In addition to Blu-ray, Sony’s announcement also affects the MiniDisc — the compact disc format Sony made in 1992 as an alternative to more fragile cassettes and unwieldy CDs. This might make it harder for MiniDisc diehards to get their hands on blank discs, which you can apparently still load music onto using your smartphone.