After discontinuing the production of cassette Walkmans last year, Sony is now about to kill another one of their original inventions: the MiniDisc Walkman. And as Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting today, Sony plans to pull the plug on the production as early as this September – obviously because nobody is buying MiniDisc Walkmans anymore.
The first MiniDisc Walkman was introduced on the Japanese market in 1992 (13 years after the first cassette Walkman), but MiniDiscs never really gained a foothold outside Japan. The picture shows that first MiniDisc Walkman, the Sony MZ1.
Worldwide, Sony managed to sell 22 million MiniDiscs through March this year. Sony will continue producing the discs themselves after September and also plans to keep offering CD Walkmans.