Sony is exiting yet another market it used to dominate: Blu-ray players. You’re likely having flashbacks to PlayStation’s big announcement that it was killing off game disc production in 2028. The thing is, this move has more subtle ramifications, one that will impact far more than just movie collectors. It’s turning all physical media into a potentially expensive proposition built only for the most dedicated to collecting it.
Japanese blog and Sony retailer Kunkoko (via FlatPanelsHD) first reported that Sony had stopped shipping its UBP-X700/K Blu-Ray DVD player. It’s currently listed as out of stock on Sony’s Japan-centric webstore with a note that it will not be restocked. Sony has positioned that player as its last budget device for 4K discs. Now that it’s no longer in production, expect it to cost a lot more than a “budget” price from resellers.
The worst part about all of this is that, while you can procure a current-gen console to play your Blu-Ray movies, they are not the best for that purpose. Case in point: Sony’s own PlayStation 5 consoles do not support Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos for movies. If you have your bright and beautiful 4K QLED or OLED sitting on your TV, you cannot watch your content at their best.
Sony’s players, like the Sony UBP-X700/K, are cited by several outlets as some of the best available right now for the average consumer. It’s completely sold out on sites like Walmart and Best Buy. That being said, there are some lingering Sony 4K models you can find for sale as of the time of writing. You may be lucky enough to find these products lingering in various electronics stores over the next few months, but the inevitable byproduct of Sony’s moves will be making watching your physical movies more expensive.
And that was the point of these players. Sure, streaming is now the most popular way of watching films, but Blu-ray players appeal to people with specific appetites—if you didn’t want to be beholden to streaming bitrates and the whims of services that could pull your favorite 4K movie at any time, for example.
The conspiracists among us will imagine this is all part of Sony’s plans to kill all physical media and then rule over the trash pile of an all-streaming world. In reality, Sony is exiting many of its previous businesses it once claimed to reign supreme. For example, the once-gadget empire sold off the majority of its TV business to TCL, who will now be fully in charge of manufacturing its next Bravia screens. If you were looking for a physical example of Sony’s retreat from physical products, the company told Bloomberg it will not be attending CES 2027, easily the biggest tech showcase of the year.
However, Sony’s retreat from disc players is still compounded by its plan to end game disc support. The next PlayStation console seems like it won’t support any sort of optical drive. What we’ll instead have to rely on is the few companies still willing to drop new players. Back in September, Panasonic pushed out a DMR-4X1010 player that doubles as a 4K broadcast tuner. It’s also currently exclusive to Japan. The other few new Blu-ray players to come out this year include the Magnetar Ultima, a kind of reference disc player that seems expressly built for deep-pocketed audiophiles. Magnetar Audio also wants you to spend $12,000 on this new player.
There’s still a market for physical media. Knowing how retro tech is getting more popular, there could be a bigger push for a vinyl-like revival of DVD players. But that’s for the future. For now, cinephiles’ movie collections are going to get much harder to watch at their best when there are fewer Blu-ray players to play them.
