Sony confirmed this week that it intends to phase out the development and production of its recordable discs after it plans to eliminate up to 250 jobs at its optical media plant in northeastern Japan.
Tom's Hardware quoted local tech outlet AV Watch when it reported that the company made the confirmation on Monday (July 1). Sony said it would eventually cease producing recordable optical media discs, including Blu-ray.
A company representative added that the company did not intend to move its operations overseas and that it was offering affected staff the option to retire early.
Japanese daily The Mainichi also reported that the job cuts were due to the reduced demand for optical media and the continued rise of streaming services.
Sony's optical disc plant is in Tagajo, Japan's Miyagi prefecture.
Blu-ray Scramble due to Sony's Disc Phaseout
It is understood that, since Sony is about to end its manufacturing of Blu-ray discs, individual consumers are expected to stockpile such while supplies last.
However, Sony still intends to sell business-to-business (B2B) products by "making them in advance."
This also meant that consumers would eventually have one less option for reliable long-term data storage since hard drives and SSDs only last an average of five years, while Blu-ray discs could last for decades, with the latest optical discs capable of lasting a hundred years.
Blu-ray discs' downside is that they can only store up to 125GB of data. The next development phase is being done by Chinese researchers, where an optical disc format could store up to 125TB, but it is still a long way to go from becoming commercially available.
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