The future of physical discs just suffered another blow courtesy of Pioneer

Japanese brand Pioneer has announced that it has bid farewell to the optical disc market.

It was one of the last big Japanese companies to make optical drives after more than 30 years as a leader in CD, DVD, and Blu-ray drive technology.

The last 4K Blu-ray players the company produced were the UDP-LX500 and UDP-LX800 in 2019. We had the former in our test rooms, and gave it five stars for its crisp picture and expressive sound.

Since then, it has been radio silence, and we hadn’t truthfully expected a new home cinema Blu-ray player to be produced by the brand.

This announcement is more about the brand’s computer disc drives, which it has continued to produce since pulling out of the Blu-ray player market.

Stereonet reports that sales of Pioneer’s optical products are scheduled to close at the end of this month, and production of Blu-ray drives has already come to an end.

After taking a look at its website, we can see the company’s remaining optical drives for computers “will be discontinued as soon as Amazon's stock runs out.”

While this news won’t make a huge difference to home cinema fans, who have already got used to Pioneer’s absence, it does firmly shut the door on any possible return of Pioneer Blu-ray players and represents another step in the depressing decline of physical media as a whole.

As I’m sure you’re aware, manufacturers have been pulling out of the Blu-ray player market at a disappointing rate, with LG the last major brand to have pulled the plug.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Sony launched its first new 4K Blu-ray player in over five years in March, the UBP-X700/K, though that perhaps isn’t the sort of new model we were all hoping for, as my colleague Lewis Empson recently discussed.

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Check out our full review of the Pioneer UDP-LX500

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