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[adamsapple]

Sony Group to cut 250 jobs from recordable media business' key hub - The Mainichi

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Sony Group Corp. will cut around 250 jobs from its recordable media business' key manufacturing hub in northeastern Japan and offer e

mainichi.jp

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.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate will also gradually cease production of optical disc storage media products, including Blu-ray discs, according to the sources.

Update:

 

[adamsapple]

Looks like Mat was onto something when he said this earlier this week

 

[GHound]

Weird.

Disney Strikes Deal for Sony to Take Over Its DVD, Blu-ray Disc Business

Disney is outsourcing part of its home entertainment division to Sony, which will manufacture, distribute and market the Mouse House's physical media.

variety.com

 

[K' Dash]

Cartridges it is.

 

[xHunter]

 

[adamsapple]

Weird.

Disney Strikes Deal for Sony to Take Over Its DVD, Blu-ray Disc Business

Disney is outsourcing part of its home entertainment division to Sony, which will manufacture, distribute and market the Mouse House's physical media.

variety.com

Disney outsourced physical media to Sony.

Now Sony is outsourcing it to someone else.

Looks like they all want to be rid of it asap.

 

[midnightAI]

I think this is cutting blu ray production in Japan, which makes sense, doesn't mean BluRay is dead or anything, especially in the West

 

[IntentionalPun]

Weird.

Disney Strikes Deal for Sony to Take Over Its DVD, Blu-ray Disc Business

Disney is outsourcing part of its home entertainment division to Sony, which will manufacture, distribute and market the Mouse House's physical media.

variety.com

Just the nature of the corporate world, a win like that deal doesn’t change the outlook of physical media production and distribution as a whole.

 

[Unknown?]

Disney outsourced physical media to Sony.

Now Sony is outsourcing it to someone else.

Looks like they all want to be rid of it asap.

Looks like real ownership will soon end.

 

[DenchDeckard]

This makes me sad

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

Thats the nature of business. Companies follow the money.

We wouldnt be where we are streaming and digital downloads if people didnt go ape shit skewing that over buying discs and boxsets or music cds.

 

[RickMasters]

Not surprising. An all digital future is just around the corner. I’m not expecting any new physical media formats to ever be introduced.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Not surprising. An all digital future is just around the corner. I’m not expecting any new physical media formats to ever be introduced.

I wonder if/when/how even personal HDD/SSD will be affected in our gadgets. With all the cloud storage options, even IT at work tries to get us to do our files saved in cloud servers as much as possible because if something fails on a personal HDD youre fucked. But save it in the cloud option and it's always there (or a backup).

Maybe for many products, it gets to a point there's no physical storage included. Just go wifi it to a cloud service only.

 

[Bojji]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

Piracy will be the last bastion for people that like to have content locally.

Many of tv shows and movies are not available anywhere anymore, again pirates are heroes that keeps them alive.

What a fucked up world we live right now...

 

[Magic Carpet]

Cartridges it is.

Companies can even hard wire a time bomb inside that makes it not work after 10 years.

 

[West Texas CEO]

Get ya shit NOW!

 

[Faust]

Updated OP with new information.

 

[K' Dash]

I guess collecting is getting ridiculously expensive in the coming years.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

Plenty of mindless sheep lining up for it as well. Companies becoming cheap and wanting to give even less but still take money. What a messed up world indeed.

 

[Punished Miku]

I'm happy with my choices the last few years.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Going into stores and seeing hardly any physical games or movies is kind of depressing. It is still nice to be able to have options but it seems that soon there won’t be any.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Thats the nature of business. Companies follow the money.

We wouldnt be where we are streaming and digital downloads if people didnt go ape shit skewing that over buying discs and boxsets or music cds.

True enough. Convenience is king.

 

[LordCBH]

Piracy will be the last bastion for people that like to have content locally.

Many of tv shows and movies are not available anywhere anymore, again pirates are heroes that keeps them alive.

What a fucked up world we live right now...

I will openly pirate all the content the day physical media dies. And I will encourage others to do so as well.

 

[poppabk]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

Being able to own a copy of a movie isn't that old - maybe mid 1980s before it was feasible to own a VHS copy. It was less than 20 years ago that you could own a copy that was close to movie theater quality (bluray). Somehow people survived all the way from the late 1800s all the way to the mid 1980s without ever being able to own a movie.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

True enough. Convenience is king.

Yup.

Never underestimate the value in fat asses saving 10 seconds to switch a disc.

All those million bullets points from 2013 when PS4/Xbox One started going digital hard were thrown out the window by most gamers. Some held true going physical as much as possible, but most went digital (including me). All because you could switch games digitally instead of getting off the couch to swap discs.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Makes sense. Physical will probably become the thing only for collector's item.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

99 percent body of modern media is shit anyway. Buy the movies/tv shows you want to own now.

 

[Badlucktroll]

 

[Diddy X]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

I guess there will always be a small market for physical so they will keep producing them just not on a massive scale.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Good riddance...

Hopefully, this means the PS6 will not even come with a disc drive. They should figure out some sort of encrypted USB drive type thing to replace physical media. We have 128GB flash drives now for under $10. Use those instead, and make the physical copy of a game to be $80 while the digital copy stays at $70 or better yet drops to $60.

Call that physical copy the collectors' edition, as that is literally what it is. A collectors edition, and anyone wanting to have a physical copy, should be willing to pay more for it.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Being able to own a copy of a movie isn't that old - maybe mid 1980s before it was feasible to own a VHS copy. It was less than 20 years ago that you could own a copy that was close to movie theater quality (bluray). Somehow people survived all the way from the late 1800s all the way to the mid 1980s without ever being able to own a movie.

Right. No disagreements there. Can't miss what you never had, no?

Really, it's the older, media owning, generations who will take issue with it.

 

[Futaleufu]

Good riddance...

Hopefully, this means the PS5 will not even come with a disc drive. They should figure out some sort of encrypted USB drive type thing to replace physical media. We have 128GB flash drives now for under $10. Use those instead, and make the physical copy of a game to be $80 while the digital copy stays at $70 or better yet drops to $60.

Call that physical copy the collectors' edition, as that is literally what it is. A collectors edition, and anyone wanting to have a physical copy, should be willing to pay more for it.

Flash drives can fail if they are not powered on periodically

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Weird how they want to rid themselves of customers asap...

 

[midnightAI]

So much ado about nothing then

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I wouldn't worry too much. PS6 will come with a disc drive still.

 

[Hudo]

I wouldn't worry too much. PS6 will come with a disc drive still.

Can the President of Digital Media and the Vice President of Optical Discs corroborate?

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Flash drives can fail if they are not powered on periodically

Ooooof...

well, an SD card thingy then, we would have finally come full circle back to carts. Even though an SSD is a glorified cart.

 

[MikeM]

We need proper digital license laws stat.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

What seems outrageous for some of us is pretty much natural for others. People use Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, they don't even own a car now, using Uber instead. One generation more (30 years) and nobody will complain about that.

 

[Deerock71]

We need proper digital license laws stat.

Digital distributors:

 

[King Dazzar]

I dont see blu-rays going anywhere for a while. Its niche for sure. But there's still quite an enthusiastic market for 4k, mainly due to the quality still being better than a lot of streaming services. The film studios seem to like trying to get additional money for both new and old films, outside of streaming.

 

[Small John McCarthy]

What seems outrageous for some of us is pretty much natural for others. People use Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, they don't even own a car now, using Uber instead. One generation more (30 years) and nobody will complain about that.

Yeah, I mean, they’ll own nothing and they’ll be happy.

 

[veterangamerUK]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

And only the movies the streaming services decide we can watch :-(

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Makes sense. Physical will probably become the thing only for collector's item.

I actually love a good collector's edition but the problem will be that they are going to jack up the price simply because the only physical edition will probably be the collector's going forward.

 

[Putonahappyface]

Not everyone plays videogames, but most people watch movies to some degree.

Imagine a world where we can't ever own a physical copy of a movie.

Continuously having to pay for subscription services to experience classics.

Yikes.

Don't forget potentially edited releases aswell, to appease the easily offended. One of many reasons I've hundreds of physical 4k uhd films.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Not even remotely surprised unfortunately. They are shoving a digital only future down our throats. Scary part is, there are and will be people embracing and celebrating the death of physical media with no clue of the horrors in store for the entertainment industries in the future.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

Don't forget potentially edited releases aswell, to appease the easily offended. One of many reasons I've hundreds of physical 4k uhd films.

Yessir!

I've been getting my collection up since I first heard BestBuy was going to stop selling movies.

 

[balls of snow]

Its the way the wind blows.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

We need proper digital license laws stat.

The only way there can be any proper digital licensing law is if its platform agnostic. Or basically in this case, not managed by the platform holders.

It would be something like a crypto wallet. Where to make a digital purchase, you have a certain account/wallet/keychain that holds all your digital keys. Any platform you sign into, would require you to link your keychain to it to make digital purchases. And on any platform you are on, your software will not work unless your keychain is linked to it. This way, you are totally free to trade your keys to anyone you want and on any other platform or medium. Once you make the trade, your unique key for that software is transferred over to the buyers keychain and they now own that software.

It should then be made illegal to sell software, without owning a digital keychain account.

I am sure you can see how unlikely something like that is to be implemented. So as long as its up to the platform holders, digital distribution will remain the wild west of sales and distribution because the current system favors them. If you think about it, as long as there is a way to ensure that if you sell your copy of digital software, it means you no longer have access to it (so it's not illegally multiplying), there is no reason we then shouldn't be able to sell our digital licenses.

The real brain twister is that; technically speaking, we should only have to buy just one copy of any multiplatform game to play it across different platforms, same way you only need to buy a blu-ray and can play it on any bluray player. Yeah... good luck with that.