Sony discontinues production of select Blu-ray and optical recording discs as first step towards exiting optical disc business

Sony has discontinued the production of select Blu-ray recording and optical recording discs as its first step towards exiting the optical disc business as demand falls. The Tagajyo factory located in Miyagi city in Japan is the last remaining factory capable of producing triple-layer, 100GB and quad-layer, 128GB BDXL Blu-ray recordable discs. Sony is also seeking voluntary early retirement from 250 of 670 employees at the plant.

Production of 25GB BD-RE, 50GB BD-RE DL, 100GB BD-RE XL, and 128GB BD-R XL Blu-ray discs for consumers has ceased. Professional and archival optical discs for video production and data storage will also be discontinued. Sales to consumers will continue until stocks run out at an undetermined date. Business-to-business media production and sales will continue until market conditions make this unprofitable.

Readers who depend on high-capacity Blu-Ray discs for storage should stock up on spare BDXL Blu-ray recording drives along with 128 GB Sony BDXL BD-R discs before prices skyrocket and stocks run out. Keep in mind that hard drive motors will eventually fail to spin, and flash storage media are subject to data errors due to electron migration, so don’t expect important photos and data stored on these to last decades. Make several backups of important files, and remember to copy everything to new media every 3-5 years before the old media dies.

Sony began the production of Blu-ray optical recording discs for consumers in 2003. These discs offered greater storage space and longevity than CD and DVD discs. A single-layer Blu-ray disc holds 25 GB of data while a double-layer disc holds 50 GB. Continued R&D led to the creation of 100 GB triple-layer and 128 GB quad-layer BDXL Blu-ray discs, which Sony released to consumers in 2018. Although Blu-ray discs are still used for distributing movies, the slow process of recording home videos to discs has turned many to use much faster flash memory and hard drives as their preferred archival storage medium.

The Tagajyo factory was established in 1954 and produces Sony optical discs and magnetic tapes. Sony engineers there are so dedicated, they continued working on the development of triple-layer media even immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.