This marks the end of an 18-year journey for the company after Blu-ray became commercially available to the masses in 2006. It follows a decision to end production of recordable B

Sony’s three-sentence press release confirmed similar death dates for its blank MiniDisc, MD data, and MiniDV cassettes. The company also made it clear that you shouldn’t expect any “successor models” to these formats from them. “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our many customers for their patronage to date,” Sony wrote last week.

It's another sore day for physical media fans. After an 18-year run, the media giant is leaving the Blu-ray game.

Sony isn’t the only maker of recordable Blu-ray discs, but since they are the dominant player, others still in that business will probably take notice – there may be a slight initial surge in demand as affected consumers “stock up” – but after the dust settles, recordable Blu-ray discs will disappear not only in the Japanese market but worldwide.

Sony Corp. has said it will stop producing recordable Blu-ray discs as of next month, in what is the latest blow to the physical media industry.

Fans of physical media—myself included—tend to be a morbid bunch, dwelling on the rise of streaming while bemoaning the steady decline of Blu-ray, the home-media format of choice for cinephiles. So when word came down that Sony will exit the recordable Blu-ray market next month,