Sony discontinues recordable Blu-ray media with “no successor”

Another nail in the coffin of physical media – Sony has axed recordable Blu-ray media

Less than two months after LG discontinued its entire Blu-ray player lineup, Sony announced that they would stop producing recordable Blu-ray Disc (BD) media next month. Additionally, Sony confirmed that they had “no successor” to this media format.

Thankfully, this move will only impact recordable media formats. As such, this will not affect the production of BD movies UHD BD movies, and video games. Regardless, this is a clear sign that disc-based media is getting phased out.

As of February 2025, we will discontinue the production of all models of Blu-ray Disc media, MiniDisc for recording, MD Data for recording, and Mini DV cassettes. Please note that there will be no successor models,

– Sony (Machine Translated)

Physical media sales continue to decline, and while UHD/4K BD movies have a growing market share, the shrinking market signals a slow death for disc-based media.

Sony has no successor planned for BD media, clearly signalling that the end of physical media is coming. Yes, other companies could invest in a new format, but this is unlikely. Don’t expect to see 8K disc media anytime soon, even if 8K screens become popular.

With Sony releasing their PlayStation 5 Pro console without a disc drive, it seems likely that Sony will move away from physical media with their next-generation PlayStation 6 console. At a minimum, we expect the system’s disc drive to be an optional add-on, not a core part of the console. This has already happened with Xbox Series S and diskless PS5 models. Moving forward, optical media will become increasingly uncommon.

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