Sony to kill off the MiniDisc Walkman in September

We all said goodbye to Sony’s cassette Walkmans last year, and it looks like we’ll be saying farewell to another legacy format later this year. It has been reported by The Nikkei, a Japanese business daily, that Sony plans to pull the plug on the MiniDisc Walkman. It’s been about 19 years since the introduction of the first MiniDisc Walkman in 1992, and while it didn’t take over the music scene like the first Walkman or Discman did, it was pretty successful in Japan.

However in this day and age, nobody seems to be using those kinds of players anymore. Portable Media Players (PMP) now don’t even need to obtain media from tapes or discs – everything can be loaded through a cable from a computer, sometimes even wirelessly. Due to poor sales of the MiniDisc Walkman Sony will stop producing them in September.

Sony will still continue producing MiniDiscs, though it’s uncertain how long they’ll keep it up. The company is still producing CD Walkmans due to the fact that people still purchase them (after all it’s one of the fastest ways to listen to a new CD that you just bought from a record store). How many of you still use the MiniDisc Walkman, and will you be missing it?

George Wong
Categories: Audio
Tags: Sony, walkman