Sony’s three-sentence press release confirmed similar death dates for its blank MiniDisc, MD data, and MiniDV cassettes. The company also made it clear that you shouldn’t expect any “successor models” to these formats from them. “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our many customers for their patronage to date,” Sony wrote last week.

Sony's exit is a sign of the times for physical media, but not necessarily the end of the road.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

Globally, the writing is on the wall for the trusty disc. Sales of DVDs has continued on a steep decline over the years; Best Buy has stopped stocking DVDs; and Redbox machines are now just worth their value in scrap metal. In gaming, of course, companies including Microsoft are pushing hard on streaming gameplay over the internet.

Fans of physical media—myself included—tend to be a morbid bunch, dwelling on the rise of streaming while bemoaning the steady decline of Blu-ray, the home-media format of choice for cinephiles. So when word came down that Sony will exit the recordable Blu-ray market next month,