GoKawiilVerbatim Japan and I-O Data have widened their joint commitment to keep recordable Blu-ray products on shelves in Japan, this time covering drive hardware as well as media. In an announcement published by the latter, the two companies stated that they would secure components and adjust production lines to continue developing new products and supplying the domestic market, following a string of exits over the past 14 months by companies including Sony and Buffalo. I-O Data is the sole domestic distributor of Verbatim-branded optical media in Japan.
In February last year, the two companies issued a similar statement that focused on disc media after Sony confirmed it was shutting down its last domestic recordable Blu-ray factory. The renewed commitment goes further by adding drive components and products to the partnership’s scope, thereby addressing what has become the more prominent supply problem now that Panasonic is the only remaining vertically integrated Japanese manufacturer of optical drives.
Before this pledge, the two companies had announced the BD Reco, a Windows-compatible external Blu-ray drive that I-O released in February this year. Per a machine translation of the announcement, the device “has attracted a great deal of interest,” and goes on to say “We have once again recognized that the need to ‘record data I want to keep onto a disc I have on hand [sic]’ continues to genuinely exist.” As a result, the two companies say they’ll continue to “plan and improve” Blu-ray-related products.
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Sony shipped its final domestic Blu-ray recorders in February, putting the final nail in the coffin of a business it had already wound down to skeleton volumes. Meanwhile, Buffalo’s Japanese arm said it wouldn’t produce successors to its current portable USB Blu-ray writers, and Elecom posted termination notices for its external drives last month, with end-of-sale dates running into June this year. LG exited the market way back in 2024, having last released a new Blu-ray product in 2018.
Panasonic, the last surviving domestic manufacturer of Blu-ray TV recorders, apologized in March over its inability to keep up with orders for its DMR-ZR1 4K DIGA recorder and said it'd expand production to meet demand. According to JEITA figures, domestic Blu-ray recorder shipments stood at around 620,000 in 2025, down from a peak of more than 6.3 million in 2011.
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