Sony quits recordable Blu-ray disc market


February will see Sony end the production of recordable Blu-ray discs, with no replacement for business users.

In a recent statement, Sony Storage Media Solutions said recording Blu-ray disc media, recording mini discs, recording MD data, and mini DV cassettes are all ending, saying there will be “no successor models.”

The production end doesn’t affect Blu-rays bought by consumers containing films and TV shows, just the blank ones that can be used to record data. Sony offered a range of recordable options, from 25 to 128 GB storage capacity, in both R (write once) and RE (write multiple times).

The production of recordable Blu-ray discs for the consumer market came to an end in July last year. At that time, Sony stated it would continue producing optical discs for business and corporate use – specifically for storing data for secure, long-term usage – until it became “unprofitable.” That position has obviously been reached.

Other manufacturers, such as Panasonic and Verbatim, are still manufacturing recordable optical discs. 4K Blu-ray discs are still being produced by various manufacturers.

Development of Blu-ray was started by Philips and Sony in 1995, shortly after Toshiba’s DVD format was seen as the ideal replacement for VHS tape.

According to IEEE Spectrum, which covered Sony’s decision: “Despite using the compact wavelengths of blue light, Blu-ray soon hit a limit of how much data could be stored.”