SONY STOPS PRODUCTION OF THE CASSETTE WALKMAN

According to akihabaranews.com, Sony has signalled the end of an era by ceasing all production of the cassette Walkman. Cassette tapes have now joined camera film and floppy disks as redundant mediums.

Sony officially stopped mass production of the cassette Walkman in 2010, but production had continued on a small scale in China to accommodate users in the United States and Europe. In January 2013 it will cease all production of the cassette Walkman.

Walking into history: The Sony Walkman with some of its modern counterparts.

Jun Yoon, Sony Australia’s Walkman Product Manager said: "Sony has been a leader in the personal audio category for over 30 years now and the Walkman cassette player has played an iconic part in this history. Although the Walkman cassette player has nostalgic memories for many of us, the way people enjoy music is changing and technology is evolving to interact and fit into our different lifestyles."

The cassette Walkman was the world's first low-cost portable stereo and went on sale in Japan in 1979. It was invented by Nobutoshi Kihara, an engineer in the audio division at Sony. He had been asked by his chairman to design a device that would help him pass the time on his frequent business trips, and enable him to listen to his favourite operas. Sony has since sold over 200 million Walkmans.

Sony’s cassette Walkmans were hugely popular in the 1980’s. Sales began to decline with the invention of Sony’s portable CD player, the Discman, and its range of MiniDisc players.

The final nail in the Walkman coffin was the introduction of the iPod and MP3 players that played digitally-stored music.  

However, the demise of the cassette Walkman is not the end of the Walkman brand. Sony still retains the brand name and now uses it on its MP3 players.

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MUSIC MACHINES - THE DECLINE OF THE MINIDISC

In the summer of 2011, Sony announced its plans to scrap making its MiniDisc Walkmans, due to a decrease in demand. They have now completely stopped production of the device.

When first released, the MiniDisc Walkman was one of the smallest personal music devices available. The MiniDisc was first introduced in 1992, more than a decade after the first cassette Walkman became available.

The Sony MiniDisc walkman was smaller than a CD

It was designed to be more compact than portable CD players. Like cassettes, owners were able to record their own music onto a MiniDisc, but at a much higher quality. The format faced stiff competition from 1995 onwards, when the CD-R became available to the mass market.

The emergence of the MP3 player in 1998 caused the MiniDisc to rapidly decline in popularity. On July 7 2011, Sony announced that it would stop shipping the MiniDisc Walkman, effectively killing the format.

The fact that this once iconic music player has been shelved is a sign of the times. Everything is becoming touchscreen; music players are becoming increasingly more compact. You don’t need to store your music on disks anymore; thousands of songs can be stored far more easily online. When the MiniDisc arrived it was the market leader. It was only a few short years before it was discontinued. Which leaves us wondering; what will replace the iPod?