{"id":64000,"date":"2026-03-25T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=64000"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:41:06","slug":"anime-and-physical-media-fans-in-japan-concerned-as-major-blu-ray-player-manufacturers-begin-to-exit-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/anime-and-physical-media-fans-in-japan-concerned-as-major-blu-ray-player-manufacturers-begin-to-exit-the-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Anime\u00a0and physical media fans\u00a0in Japan concerned\u00a0as\u00a0major Blu-ray player manufacturers\u00a0begin to\u00a0exit the market\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Elecom<\/strong>, a major electronics manufacturer and supplier in Japan, recently announced that it will&nbsp;be&nbsp;discontinuing&nbsp;sales of external Blu-ray&nbsp;disc&nbsp;drives as of June 30, 2026.&nbsp;According to the notice, the company will be halting production of all nine external&nbsp;players in its lineup,&nbsp;with no official announcement\/plans for a successor at the time of writing.&nbsp;The company apologized for the inconvenience and advised despairing&nbsp;Blu-ray connoisseurs&nbsp;on X to stock&nbsp;up on spares while there\u2019s still leftover stock.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This comes only a month after another domestic manufacturer, Buffalo,&nbsp;similarly announced that it would stop&nbsp;manufacturing all three of its external Blu-ray&nbsp;disc&nbsp;drives as of July this year.&nbsp;Since standard modern PCs cannot,&nbsp;by default, playback&nbsp;Blu-Rays, this&nbsp;attachable hardware is&nbsp;essential for fans and collectors of physical media.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u5916\u4ed8\u3051Blu-ray\u30c9\u30e9\u30a4\u30d6\u3001\u5f0a\u793e\u30822026\u5e746\u670830\u65e5\u3092\u3082\u3063\u3066\u8ca9\u58f2\u7d42\u4e86\u3068\u306a\u308a\u307e\u3059\u3002<br>\u203b\u5728\u5eab\u72b6\u6cc1\u306b\u3088\u308a\u3001\u6642\u671f\u304c\u524d\u5f8c\u3057\u307e\u3059\u306e\u3067\u3054\u4e86\u627f\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u3002<br><br>\u5f0a\u793e\u5916\u4ed8\u3051Blu-ray\u30c9\u30e9\u30a4\u30d6\u8ca9\u58f2\u7d42\u4e86\u306e\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/x29bPKfcss\">https:\/\/t.co\/x29bPKfcss<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u30a8\u30ec\u30b3\u30e0(\u516c\u5f0f) (@elecom_pr) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elecom_pr\/status\/2033762754704679067?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 17, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Companies withdrawing&nbsp;from the Blu-ray market has been an ongoing trend for the past few years, and external players are the next&nbsp;thing&nbsp;to be&nbsp;impacted&nbsp;following&nbsp;recordable Blu-ray discs.&nbsp;As of February, Sony&nbsp;is making its final shipments of&nbsp;Blu-rays, following suit after&nbsp;manufacturer&nbsp;TVS REGZA&nbsp;ceased production at the beginning of the year&nbsp;(as reported by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/0115765.com\/archives\/176280\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Otaku&nbsp;Soken<\/a>). These discs have allowed&nbsp;anime fans in Japan to create private, physical&nbsp;anime collections by recording TV broadcasts&nbsp;among other uses, so&nbsp;many are&nbsp;unhappy&nbsp;about them being phased out.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, Panasonic and Sharp remain the only major domestic manufacturers still actively manufacturing Blu-ray disc recorders, but playback devices&nbsp;potentially&nbsp;becoming&nbsp;scarce&nbsp;has become a new concern.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major Japanese manufacturers of standalone Blu-ray players like Elecom and Buffalo have announced that they will be discontinuing production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":64072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,65],"tags":[73,17],"class_list":["post-64000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-nongaming-news","tag-anime","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Anime\u00a0and physical media fans\u00a0in Japan concerned\u00a0as\u00a0major Blu-ray player manufacturers\u00a0begin to\u00a0exit the market\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Major Japanese manufacturers of standalone Blu-ray players like Elecom and Buffalo have announced that they will be discontinuing production.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/anime-and-physical-media-fans-in-japan-concerned-as-major-blu-ray-player-manufacturers-begin-to-exit-the-market\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anime\u00a0and physical media fans\u00a0in Japan concerned\u00a0as\u00a0major Blu-ray player manufacturers\u00a0begin to\u00a0exit the market\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Major Japanese manufacturers of standalone Blu-ray players like Elecom and Buffalo have announced that they will be discontinuing production.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/anime-and-physical-media-fans-in-japan-concerned-as-major-blu-ray-player-manufacturers-begin-to-exit-the-market\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-25T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-26T00:41:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260325-64000-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1345\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"772\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Anime\u00a0and physical media fans\u00a0in Japan concerned\u00a0as\u00a0major Blu-ray player manufacturers\u00a0begin to\u00a0exit the market\u00a0 - 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