Sony to Discontinue Some Consumer Blu-ray Discs but Keep Producing for Games and Movies

TapTechNews July 3rd news, Sony plans to discontinue consumer recordable Blu-ray discs, but will still produce commercial Blu-ray disc products for areas such as games and movies.

TapTechNews cited the June 29th report of the Japanese media Mainichi Shimbun, Sony plans to lay off 250 people, these employees are located in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan (currently about 670 employees), from the recordable media business department, and the products of this department include the Blu-ray discs used by the PS5.

Sony later responded that this round of layoffs mainly affects consumer Blu-ray discs. The discontinued recordable Blu-ray disc models include BD-RE (25GB), BD-REDL (50GB), BD-REXL (100GB), and BD-RXL (128GB). The specific production date is to be determined and is being negotiated with terminal sales partners.

Standard Blu-ray discs, 4K UHD discs, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Blu-ray discs will still be produced, transported and sold globally, and produced by Sony's independent DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corporation) factory.

The digital games sold by Sony's PlayStation gaming and online services division are indeed far more than physical games, but this ratio has not deviated to the extent that it is necessary to stop producing Blu-ray game discs.

For example, in fiscal year 23 ending March 31, 2024, consumers purchased 86 million physical PlayStation Blu-ray game discs, while the digital games were 200 million copies.