Verbatim and I-O Data promised to continue the release of the recorded optical carriers of the Blu-Ray Disk, despite the departure from this market of other large disk manufacturers. The press release on the Verbatim website in Japan says that the company “will respond to customers’ confidence with stable supplies of optical discs to the Japanese market and continuing sales.”
Image source: Verbatim
Apparently, the Verbatim statement is connected with the recent Sony solution to stop the production of the recorded Blu-Ray discs, as well as the Minidisc, MD Data and Minidv cassett carriers. According to reports, Sony will close the last production enterprise in Japan, used to create carriers of the mentioned formats, already this month. It should be noted that the supplies of the recorded Blu-Ray discs from Sony for consumers were stopped last summer, and now Wendor has decided to complete leaving the market and the termination of commercial deliveries. At the same time, the release of Blu-ray discs with films will continue.
The Verbatim press release says that ensuring stable supplies of high-quality recorded optical discs to Japanese clients is the “main priority”. At the same time, the company agrees that the market is now experiencing a turning point, since more and more suppliers are leaving it. Despite this, Verbatim will continue to supply Blu-ray discs to the Japanese market. This message is concentrated around the Japanese market and there are practically no mention of the company’s global business.
On the North American website of Verbatim there are no references to the fact that the company is preparing to reduce the supply of the recorded optical discs. On the contrary, Wendor proudly declares that he is “optical brand No. 1 in the world”. The company also continues to maintain an extensive assortment of various products that are still available in retail.
We also note that recently Verbatim has introduced a new device for reading and recording optical discs. At the CES 2025 exhibition at the beginning of the year, the company demonstrated the writer Slimline Blu-Ray Writer, in the description of which the device is called “The 4K writer with support for the Ultra HD Blu-Ray playing and the USB-Cabel Pot Pot”. The drive is supplied with the NERO software for recording disks and compatible with PCs, which are equipped with Intel Pentium III / AMD Duron 900 MHz and higher processors.