Last week, Sony announced that it would be ending its recordable Blu-Ray disc business. While it’s not catastrophic news for physical media fans, it’s certainly disappointing.
The first hint about the death of Sony’s recordable disc business was a rumor about layoffs at the company’s optical media plant that recently circulated around the web. That rumor was eventually confirmed by Japanese outlet AV Watch last week. Tom’s Hardware subsequently picked up the news last week and translated it into English, sparking a minor panic about the impact this might have on Blu-Ray fans’ collecting habits.
Although the exact date and time when the discs in question will no longer be available is not known, what is known is that their days are numbered.
Fortunately, Sony has no plans to phase out studio Blu-ray releases. Those discs will still be available for the foreseeable future. “We will continue to sell B2B products by manufacturing them in advance, and for consumer products, we will decide on the specific end date in the future through discussions with distribution partners such as major retailers, but we will continue to sell them for the time being,” the company told AV Watch.
That said, Sony is still making a mistake by abandoning the recordable disc business. You’ll now have one less option for archiving that show or movie you want to watch. There’s been a wave of renewed interest in physical media as streaming splits into a million directions and users have realized they don’t actually own their digital purchases. The ability to create copies of your library is essential for preservation. And honestly, Blu-Ray is just a great storage format.
Gizmodo has reached out to Sony for more information on its decision to phase out recordable discs and will update this story when it responds.
