Sony to gradually cease production of optical disc media, including Blu-ray Discs, cuts 250 jobs

Thread: Sony to gradually cease production of optical disc media, including Blu-ray Discs, cuts 250 jobs
TaySan

TaySan

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TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Sony Group Corp. will cut around 250 jobs from its recordable media business' key manufacturing hub in northeastern Japan and offer early retirement packages to its employees, sources close to the matter said Saturday.



The planned job cuts come amid a decline in demand for traditional storage formats such as Blu-ray discs, with streaming services now the norm.



The manufacturing base in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, currently has a workforce of around 670 people.
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Don't like the sound of this at all. PS6 digital only?


The electronics and entertainment conglomerate will also gradually cease production of optical disc storage media products, including Blu-ray discs, according to the sources.
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I love having all my games digital… but I hate the idea that we've lost the ability really "keep" games anymore.

I know it's not economical or practical, but I wish devs would release a limit run of "fully patched, final versions" of their games 2 years after release, that are like the master copies for future preservation, no online or patching or dlc or updates needed, just put the game in and play.
 
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Pagusas said:
I know it's not economical or practical, but I wish devs would release a limit run of "fully patched, final versions" of their games 2 years after release, that are like the master copies for future preservation, no online or patching or dlc or updates needed, just put the game in and play.
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Nintendo has (kinda) been doing this. When printing new batches of cartridges, they tend to put the latest patched version on it.

Also the boutique physical sellers like Limited Run and Strictly Limited have been doing that, even while the digital crowd mocked from the sidelines.
 
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There's a big difference between Sony manufacturing the discs and Sony not releasing products on discs, which one is it?
 
DonDonDonPata said:
Glad I've built a large PS3-PS5 library. Value is gonna shoot up over the next decade, if nothing else.
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Some games you'll make money on, but a large percentage will be less than cost. It's not really a money making endeavour collecting games, unless its really niche collection (low print runs etc).

I think just not spending the money on games in the first place would make someone more money.
 
Hostile_18 said:
Some games you'll make money on, but a large percentage will be less than cost. It's not really a money making endeavour collecting games, unless its really niche collection (low print runs etc).

I think just not spending the money on games in the first place would make someone more money.
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Oh for sure, I don't mean that I'd be breaking even or making a fortune, and that's fine. But when I see games selling for $40+ above MSRP I have a hard time justifying keeping it if I don't really care for it.
 
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I'm not reading they are stopping home releases from that article tbh.

As far as media consumption goes I care about having the best, but not what the best actually is. So if WEB DL is the best we can get, so be it. Loads more room on my server for even more.
 
Pyrate said:
The end is near. My personal last connection to the larger part of modern gaming is getting cut.
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For me that's been the slow death of single player centric games. I know it sounds strange, but I think one of the reasons FF7 Remake trilogy has resonated so much with me is it's basically a last grand gasp of love of major AAA single player only games that remind me of when I really got into gaming. I think once this trilogy is done, and the credits role, I'll be greatly stepping back from gaming. Bittersweet, but I'm glad it's FF7 I'm going out on, given it's rooted in where I started.
 
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Hostile_18 said:
I'm not reading they are stopping home releases from that article tbh.

As far as media consumption goes I care about having the best, but not what the best actually is. So if WEB DL is the best we can get, so be it. Loads more room on my server for even more.
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It's not the end but physical media is clearly on borrowed time.
 
Optimus said:
But how will you patch those games once the services have been shut off for those systems?
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By that point, I'll have large enough hard drives in my two PS3s and my PS5 to install it all and have it good to go. Also, it seems unlikely that patching servers would become LESS available in the all-digital future. A disc is still a physical copy of a digital key, essentially.
 
Honestly, once physical dies, I'm going full PC and retro.

Consoles only make sense still to me when you can own the game forever. Digital just doesn't have value on a walled garden system with a limited lifespan.

Meanwhile on the retro side of things, indie game devs and third party manufacturers are already both extending the life of and improving old hardware, and releasing brand new games on cartridge and even now disc for out of production systems.

Even if current gen platform holders don't want to support it, the dedicated enthusiast market for physical games is alive and well, and being increasingly catered to, much like how vinyl, CD's and even now cassettes are making a comeback in the music market.
 
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Arkam said:
So all MS has to do is keep making consoles with Blu Ray drives and I will fully swap camps. My PS5 is used to watch Blu Ray movies 10X more than play games.
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And if they will keep a strong used game market alive, they will win customers for sure.
 
Pagusas said:
I love having all my games digital… but I hate the idea that we've lost the ability really "keep" games anymore.

I know it's not economical or practical, but I wish devs would release a limit run of "fully patched, final versions" of their games 2 years after release, that are like the master copies for future preservation, no online or patching or dlc or updates needed, just put the game in and play.
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DRM free games basically combine the ownership of physical (since you can back up the files onto a hard drive that you control) with the convenience of digital.

It's why I try to buy all my games from GOG. Hell, a few weeks ago, I spent an entire weekend just downloading and back up every single one of my GOG library's offline installers, stuck them on a hard drive, then put that in a desk to keep safe.
 
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Arkam said:
Reading this article it looks like it is just recordable disks that are being wound down…. For now. So it will only impact those who have been using writable BR for cold storage. If that's you, better stock up!


www.tomshardware.com

Sony kills off recordable Blu-ray and optical disks for consumer market — business-to-business production to continue until unprofitable

You better stock up on recordable Blu-ray discs if you use it for archiving your data.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
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I knew it would be something like this. So people who use recordable discs, less than 1% of the market that handles physical media surely.

Disney not releasing home media in Australia was bigger news last year, in terms of doom and gloom.
 
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Zero said:
If you're willing to pay a fortune for each one
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We did at the time. Half these new games coming out are less expensive than the old ones were when new, even before taking inflation into account.

SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, Mortal Combat and Street Fighter 2 would be the $130 each if they were released today.
 
this is where emulation will be much needed in the future to preserve older games.

there needs to be a digital game library from all the big companies just to be able to buy and store your older games
 
I thought you guys were talking about the ACTUAL cartridge releases these old games received. I'm not interested in homebrew game carts. I'm a purist and want the real deal. I have a few CIB Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games from back in the 90s in my collection.
 
I have to admit, I am ra

Zero said:
I thought you guys were talking about the ACTUAL cartridge releases these old games received. I'm not interested in homebrew game carts. I'm a purist and want the real deal. I have a few CIB Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games from back in the 90s in my collection.
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'Purist' and 'real deal' my ass. You are a lame snob.

There is some fantastic stuff coming out for old consoles and home computers...
 
So we're talking about NEW games being released on OLD consoles?

You could have been a bit clearer on that...
 
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