Sony Ends Production of Recordable Blu-ray Discs

Blu-ray discs have been part of the digital media landscape for almost 20 years, but fewer and fewer people have optical drives to use them. As such, Sony doesn't see the need to keep pumping out recordable Blu-rays. The company's Japanese arm has announced that it will end manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray, possibly spelling the end of this once popular storage medium.

This announcement comes alongside Sony's confirmation that it will stop making other, much less popular storage formats, including recordable MiniDiscs, MD-Data, and MiniDV cassettes. This move does not affect the production of retail Blu-ray video discs, which continue to be the standard for high-quality, uncompressed audio and video.

Blu-ray discs first went on sale in 2006, when they did battle with the competing HD DVD standard. Eventually, Sony's tight relationship with film studios and the release of the Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3 helped push Sony ...