Sony ends an era by discontinuing their MiniDisc player after 21 years

Sony discontinues the MiniDisc players after enjoying 21 years on the market.

@anthony256

Published Feb 4, 2013 4:32 AM CST
Updated Mar 10, 2021 2:19 PM CST

36 seconds read time

After 21 years in the limelight (well, until the iPod was unveiled) Sony's MiniDisc player has been discontinued. Sony are just finishing off the MiniDisc, where the last units will leave the assembly line next month.

Sony ends an era by discontinuing their MiniDisc player after 21 years | TweakTown.com

Debuting back in 1992, Sony's MiniDisc player was heralded as the next big step in portable music players, where it was capable of cram a bunch of music onto a small optical disc, which at the time was about half the size of a compact disc. This made it easier to take your music with you, enjoying a nice 80 minutes of listening, but it never really took off with US consumers for a few reasons.

Pricing on the format was expensive and didn't slide down to acceptable levels for years, and there weren't many new releases dumped onto the format. Japan was the place to be for the MiniDisc, but elsewhere? Not so much.

NEWS SOURCE:techspot.com

Anthony Garreffa

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.