I would think is this more about the slow death of Blu-Ray with the switch to digital releases and streaming only releases.This would be a situation where even buying existing titles wouldn't change Disney's mind, because their focus is so narrow it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Only release some animated, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars titles? "Oh I guess people don't want to buy 4K discs of old stuff"
Much like the cancelling of theatrical screenings for older movies, this would be another casualty of Disney owning Fox.
Meanwhile; Sony, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers continue release older titles to 4K physical.
www.zdnet.com
The end of Blu-ray
Thanks to the rise of streaming, Samsung is discontinuing its Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray player lines. That's lousy news for people who love older TV shows and movies.
The death of the DVD: Why sales dropped more than 86% in 13 years
DVD sales have been on the decline for over a decade, but a slew of new streaming services and a shift in how consumers are watching movies and TV shows could be the final death knell for the technology.www.cnbc.com
Its the market, overall physical media sales are down. Its a streaming and digital media world now. So you may still have a few niche vendors that will provide physical media, overall its going away as time goes on. Give it a few years and even those niche vendors will cease to exist. Just like VHS and other physical media before it, new technology has replaced the older technology. Again if the largest manufacturer of Blu-Ray/4K UHD Players is getting out the market its a slow drum beat to a death of physical media. It'll take a couple years but it will happen.
Is physical media less popular? Sure. Is it dying? It doesn't have to be. The studios want digital bad so that's what they are pushing towards. All entertainment companies want to cut out the middle man as much as they can.
I'm old enough to have known a world without things like VHS and other physical media devices. And just like everyone said collectors would keep the VHS alive, they have not. You could be right that there may always be a small niche of consumers that will want physical media, just like collectors still want vinyl. But overall the physical media market will likely go away. You mention PCs and Consoles, even those are have been debating dropping optical drives and some have. Both Sony and Microsoft almost dropped optical drives on both their next gen consoles, but both blinked and opted to include it. So while they still may be available today, in a couple years after a couple new generations come out who knows. Just like Apple dropping the headphone jack others are following suit now, all it takes is one major vendor to drive the rest of the market.
The video game companies want digital worse than the movie studios. They absolutely hate the 2nd hand market. It doesn't have as much to do with people not wanting physical but more with studios wanting digital. There is plenty of room for both and both can thrive. Not so much in movies, but the 2nd hand market is not bad for video games, it actually helps. But all studios, games or movies or music are motivated to get rid of physical because of the used market, that they make zero off of. The 2nd hand market isn't the only reason, but it is a big one.
I remember the good old days when media companies were screaming about the potential of piracy due to video tapes. Ah we've come a long way.
www.slashfilm.com
