There are many formats around at the moment, many of which are vying to become the industry standard. Back in the day, Sony’s Betamax was trying to gain dominance by going up against VHS, and for anyone who’s ever rented a video tape, you know that VHS pretty much won the format wars.
Now with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray being the choice of physical media these days, you would think that Betamax would have long been phased out right? However it seems that is not the case. In fact it turns out that it was only recently that Sony has decided that they will officially kill the Betamax format.
For those who are wondering how on earth it is still surviving, it is because over in Japan, it turns out that Betamax is still alive and well. It would seem that for some reason, there is demand for the format over in the Japanese market, but even then we suppose all (good?) things must come to an end.
Before you rush out and hop on the next plane to Japan, you can rest assured knowing that there is still time to collect a piece of technology history. Sony will only officially stop selling the tapes in March of 2016, so don’t need to rush out and go crazy buying them up just yet.
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