Sony Group seems poised to be one of the first major media company to ditch their physical media in the coming future. According to Mainichi, the tech giant is cutting 250 jobs from their recordable media business, mainly from their hub in northern Japan.
The job cuts are reported as a direct result of demand dropping off for physical media and other traditional storage formats, like Blu-Ray. With streaming tapping the majority of the business these days, the company will start to cease production of all Blu-Ray discs soon and will likely chew into the workforce left out of the 670 the factory currently has in Japan.
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For many, this shouldn’t come as a surprise since streaming video has become the go-to way for most to consume their media. Many major films are no longer released on physical media, including those released by Netflix, which only recently started offering physical discs through The Criterion Collection.
This doesn’t officially mean an end to physical media, as there is still a possibility companies like Sony could move to offer their films through a boutique service like Criterion, Arrow or another company. It just remains to be seen how this will shake out for everybody after they’ve lost access to something beloved and then can’t buy a copy to own that isn’t digital.
No word on if this will affect any video game sales, but many there have moved on to online downloads and digital extras. The Microsoft Game Pass and Sony Playstation Plus subscription offers are also changing how people play their games.
