Sony has released a warning to their shareholders that their operating income projections are going to be reduced by 68% from earlier forecasts. The original figure was 80 billion yen ($782 million) over the financial year, but they have had to adjust that down to 26 billion yen ($254 million). Part of this reduction is due to extra expenses incurred while exiting the PC manufacturing business, but almost half of the unexpected loss is from shrinking sales of optical media.
Sony says that "demand for physical media is contracting faster than anticipated," especially in Europe. This does not bode well for the future of the Blu-ray format. Nor will it encourage others to invest in future optical formats for higher resolution video, like the upcoming 4k format. This will make distribution of ultra high definition video a tough nut to crack, as bandwidth restrictions and caps on downloading will discourage online delivery, and the consumer's growing disdain for optical media undermines any confidence in yet another optical disc format.
With public preferences shifting to streaming media, the future of optical discs grows dimmer each year. Anyone for video delivered by usb flash drives?
You can read more on the story at the Verge
And here is a link to the announcement from Sony.
