According to Japanese media reports, Sony recently carried out a round of layoffs and provided its employees with early retirement plans.

01 Sony layoffs

Sony will carry out a round of layoffs at its recordable media manufacturing plant in northern Japan, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. The reason is the current reduced demand for media such as optical discs and the continued rise of streaming services.

It is understood that Sony's media manufacturing business unit in Tagajo, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, will cut 250 jobs, and people familiar with the matter revealed that some of the laid-off employees will take early retirement plans.

The recordable media business unit affected by the layoffs is responsible for the research and development of all physical media. It is reported that the layoffs are part of Sony's slowdown plan in the field of physical media, and the company intends to eventually stop producing physical media (including Blu-ray discs). The specific timetable of the plan is currently unclear. The report pointed out that the layoffs will not affect the production of Sony's pre-pressed optical discs (ROM read-only discs), but only the production of recordable optical discs such as CD-R, DVD-R, and BD-R will be affected.

Sony currently has 670 employees at the Tagajo plant, and people familiar with the matter said it is not certain whether the remaining employees will be "safe" because industry sources say Sony will "gradually stop producing optical storage media products including Blu-ray discs."

02 What does the media say?

Physical media consumers should not be overly concerned about the impact of Sony's reduction in optical storage production, which is manufactured for the music, video and game markets. The president of Sony's physical media business claimed in some communities that layoffs at optical media production facilities will not affect pre-pressed discs. Obviously, as optical discs gradually fade out of the sight of personal computer users, Sony's gradual elimination of the production of recordable/rewritable discs is a general trend.

Although the rise of streaming media has affected storage media and digital content has become a new choice for users, Sony and Microsoft still launch game consoles that support optical discs, and some enthusiasts still insist on collecting physical media (optical discs) that store music, videos and games. However, one problem that manufacturers have to face is that the reason why users are still seeking physical media storage is that physical discs only need to be properly stored, and there is no need to worry about problems such as being unable to use or even inaccessible after purchasing digital content. However, as physical media sales gradually decrease, users are being pushed online. Fans of physical media claim that this method has better audio and visual fidelity than streaming.

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