That's A Wrap: Sony To Kill Off Betamax Tapes

Sony (Hanover: SON1.HA - news) is to stop selling Betamax video cassettes in March 2016, it has announced.

New (KOSDAQ: 160550.KQ - news) tapes have been available only in Japan for several years - even though the company discontinued Betamax video recorders back in 2002.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) 's the final chapter in a long-running "format war" which began in the 1970s.

A year after Betamax was launched, JVC began to sell VHS cassettes, prompting a battle between the two brands to become the accepted format for home video.

Although Sony's offering was widely perceived to offer superior quality, VHS won greater market share because its recording machines were cheaper to buy.

A single VHS tape could also record video for three hours, while Betamax cassettes offered considerably less recording time.

Sony Japan said the end of analogue television had further hit demand for Betamax cassettes - with most people now choosing to record in a digital format.

VHS was eventually superseded by DVDs, but history soon repeated itself, with another "format war" emerging in the 2000s.

This battle was between Blu-ray and Toshiba (Swiss: TOSH.SW - news) 's HD DVD format, with both manufacturers vying for their discs to become the most accepted way of storing high-definition video.

Blu-ray managed to see off its rival by 2008, as it was the preferred format for several major movie studios - and Sony had decided to include a Blu-ray disc player in its PlayStation 3 consoles (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .