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.

Sony announced that the company is officially halting the production of recordable Blu-ray, MiniDisc and MD Data disc media as well as MiniDV cassettes. It's another step in the slow decline of physical media as Sony said that production of the optical media will end in February this year.

Sony is officially ending production of recordable Blu-rays. In an announcement from Japan spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Sony Storage Media Solutions said it will stop manufacturing the discs in February, alongside recordable MiniDiscs, MD-Data, and MiniDV cassettes, adding, “there will be no successor models.”

Sony's exit is a sign of the times for physical media, but not necessarily the end of the road.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

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,

Sony Japan announced that it will no longer manufacture or sell blank Blu-ray Discs in its home market. Several outlets misinterpreted the company's press release and incorrectly assumed that the Blu-ray format was discontinued—nope,