Sony To Stop Production Of Blu-ray Discs

My biggest "old man take" is that I should be allowed to buy something, pay for it once, and own it. I shouldn't have to pay a monthly fee to access it or have to keep track of the endless rights litigation that happens on a monthly basis when things are added to and removed from various streaming platforms. Take for example when we covered The Hunger Games in advance of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes or Pokemon: Detective Pikachu before The Super Mario Movie. Despite the fact that I had at the time functionally every streaming service, finding these unambiguously large release titles was a difficult task. Fortunately, I owned all these titles on 4K Blu-ray already so I could just pop the movie on and watch it. People who want that ease and efficiency are going to be losing that as Sony ends production of the Blu-ray disk.

Now let's just pull back a little of what fears people may be feeling regarding this and their library of physical media. This does not mean studios and game developers are going to stop making Blu-rays because there are other companies like Pioneer that produce the physical disk. This also does not impact the industry standard editions that movies are released on including the 4K Blu-ray, this is the consumer-grade edition that you can buy at Staples or Best Buy to put your own family films or home movies on Blu-ray.

Still, this is a dangerous harbinger for what could be coming down the line as more studios decide to primarily produce content for streaming. Disney has already announced plans to outsource its physical media production and the quality of the extras included in the physical media releases have been of lower quality than in years past. If someone wants to get into filmmaking, the director's commentary tracks are an invaluable resource to gain insights into the process but this is something that is lost on streaming.

Invariably this is the first step toward the elimination of physical media so, if you are someone who wants to keep the movies you like, I'd recommend buying physical media now before what we can and cannot watch are more easily dictated by the streaming services. Also, indie filmmakers who are looking to recreate the look and feel of the MiniDV movie for an aesthetic horror or a late-90s/early-2000s period piece should probably stock up considering those are being discontinued as well.