[ad_1]
What has just happened? After launching the industry's first Blu-ray player 13 years ago, Samsung confirmed they were leaving the US market and would not be launching new Blu-ray hardware in the near future.
Last April, Oppo announced its release from the market for new Blu-ray players. It seems now that Samsung is following suit. Cnet reports that Samsung has confirmed that they will no longer develop new Blu-ray players, in 1080p or 4k variants, for the US market.
Samsung introduced a new Blu-ray player in 2017 and had remained quietly silent on new drives for a while, thus avoiding technology at the most recent shows such as IFA or the Berlin CES in January.
According to unidentified sources, a new model was being prepared for launch this year, but these same contacts confirmed to Forbes that this was no longer the case.
The decision seems relatively unsurprising given the market context. Streaming services are quite ubiquitous, especially in the US, and Blu-ray disc sales accounted for only 5.3% of record sales in the US, according to the latest data – well below 57.9% market share of DVDs.
In a battle that looked a lot like the wars of yesteryear between VHS and Betamax, Blu-ray was the winning technology, beating Toshiba's rival "HD DVD" format. Supported by giants such as Samsung, Panasonic and Sony, Blu-ray has finally become the standard for physical media 1080p and later 4k. In particular, the inclusion by Sony Blu-ray capabilities in the PS3, then the PS4, has introduced the hardware at home.
There is no indication that Samsung is removing existing models from the US stalls, but if record sales do not increase and therefore encourage hardware manufacturers to produce new models, we may see the beginning of the end of the year. Blu-ray format.
[ad_2]
Source link