- Buffalo reverses Blu-ray release decision after securing more components
- Customers face price increases of 33 to 51% for remaining stock of portable units
- Manufacturing will eventually cease once the current supply of components is exhausted.
Japanese company Buffalo has reversed its decision to stop selling Blu-ray drives (via PC clock), announcing that it will continue selling several laptop models after securing additional supplies of previously unavailable components.
This comes after a previous announcement in February 2026 that it would discontinue sales of Blu-ray drives in July 2026 due to component shortages, not lack of demand.
However, customers will pay a premium for Buffalo’s renewed sales due to the ongoing global semiconductor shortage, rising materials costs and higher overall manufacturing costs.
Limited supply causes sharp price increases
For example, the BRXL-PTV6U3 model bundled with writing software sees the biggest increase of 51%, from ¥16,940 ($104) to ¥25,630 ($158). Buffalo’s BRXL-PT6U3 model also sees a 44% price increase, and the BRXL-PTWOU3 increases its cost by 33%.
Additionally, while the company continues to sell Blu-ray drives at a higher cost to maintain supply for customer demand, production will only continue for as long as the newly purchased components last, meaning Buffalo itself is facing significant supply difficulties.
No end date has been shared due to the unpredictability of production volumes, shipping volumes, and retail inventory levels, but once parts are no longer available, manufacturing will stop and sales will likely end permanently.
More broadly, it marks current challenges in the industry, with Pioneer confirming it would exit the optical disc drive business in 2025. LG also stopped making new drives and Sony shipped its consumer Blu-ray recorders in Japan, implying a relatively strong market as other regions dwindled.
Some manufacturers still cling to
However, earlier this year Verbatim Japan and IO Data publicly committed to continuing development of Blu-ray drives (via Tom Hardware) even after major players pulled out, arguing that demand remains strong for customers who need long-term offline storage, such as photographers and videographers, governments, enterprises and archives.
“We have once again recognized the need to ‘burn the data I want to keep on a disk I have on hand.’ [sic]’genuinely continues to exist,’ the two companies said in a joint statement.
However, optical storage faces competition from the generally more expensive, but much more convenient rival, cloud storage. Many also tend to prefer local storage via SSD and HDD.
Ultimately, despite continued demand in some markets in Japan, likely driven by anime consumption and a relatively strong but declining movie rental business, the Blu-ray market is no longer large enough to ensure a stable supply of components. With the news that Buffalo could also soon exit the market after a second wind, it could mark the end of the Blu-ray era.
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