Quick Summary
Despite some initial reports, Sony isn’t shutting down all Blu-ray production.
But it is getting out of the recordable disc business.
If you’re a home cinema fan, Sony’s delivered some bad news. The company has confirmed that it’s exiting the Blu-ray business.
However, despite some initial reports, the move won’t affect your home cinema options for the foreseeable future. That’s because Sony’s only shutting down its recordable disc business for now – TV and movie Blu-ray releases will continue as normal.
The confusion occurred late last week when Sony Japan announced that from February, it would no longer be manufacturing recordable versions of Blu-ray discs or MiniDiscs.
However, the recordable bit seems to have been lost in translation and several sites reported that Blu-ray was dead. It isn’t.
What’s happening to Blu-ray?
For now, it’s business as usual. Rather than rushing to publish “Blu-ray is dead” articles, How To Geek reached out to Sony for clarification and got this response:
“In Japan, we have a culture to record TV programs to Blu-ray disc and sell blank storage Blu-ray discs for this use,” a spokesperson said.
“The subject products of this notification are these discs. No other products, including recorded Blu-rays containing our TV programmes / movies sold by Sony Pictures, or Blu-ray players sold by Sony Corporation are the scope of this notification.”
In other words, your movie Blu-rays and 4K Blu-ray releases won’t be affected for the time being. This isn’t the death of physical media that some early reports panicked about, and as Sony’s recordable Blu-rays were exclusive to the Japanese market, the impact is going to be minimal elsewhere.
That said, Blu-ray’s future is still looking a little shaky.
As we reported last year, sales have been in decline for a while and some big names, such as Disney, are moving away from physical media altogether, in favour of streaming.
But, as much as streaming offers convenience, there are several key areas where Blu-ray absolutely beats it – picture and sound quality being two key factors.
Whether through censorship or simply cost-cutting, streamers often remove movies and TV shows from their catalogues, and of course, you can’t stream if you don’t have a subscription. You don’t need to pay for ongoing access to the Blu-rays on your bookshelves.
While Blu-ray itself is safe for the foreseeable future, we’re still waiting for the next-gen successors that have been long promised but not yet delivered.
And, with Sony starting the inevitable shift away from Blu-ray, it may well end up being the last optical movie medium you can snap up in the supermarket.
