Sony Shuts Down Nearly Its Entire Memory Card Business Due To SSD Shortage (petapixel.com) 50
For the "foreseeable future," Sony says it has stopped accepting new orders for most of its CFexpress and SD memory card lines due to the an ongoing memory supply shortage. "Due to the global shortage of semiconductors (memory) and other factors, it is anticipated that supply will not be able to meet demand for CFexpress memory cards and SD memory cards for the foreseeable future," the company said in a notice. "Therefore, we have decided to temporarily suspend the acceptance of orders from our authorized dealers and from customers at the Sony Store from March 27, 2026 onwards. PetaPixel reports: The suspension includes all of Sony's memory card lines, including CFexpress Type A, CFexpress Type B, and SD cards. The 240GB, 480GB, 960GB, and 1920GB capacity Type A cards have been suspended, as have the 480GB and 240GB Type B cards. The full gamut of Sony's high-end SD cards has also been suspended, including the 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB TOUGH-branded cards and the lower-end 512GB, 256GB, 128GB, and 256GB plainly-branded Sony cards, which cap out at V60 speeds. Even Sony's lower-end, V30 128GB and 64GB SD cards have been suspended, showcasing that the SSD shortage affects all types of solid state, not just the high-end ones.
It appears that only the 960GB CFexpress Type B card and the lowest-end SF-UZ series SD cards remain in production. However, those UHS-I SD cards are discontinued in the United States outside of a scant few retailers and resellers. "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers," Sony concludes.
It appears that only the 960GB CFexpress Type B card and the lowest-end SF-UZ series SD cards remain in production. However, those UHS-I SD cards are discontinued in the United States outside of a scant few retailers and resellers. "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers," Sony concludes.
Dear Tech Gods (Score:5, Funny)
Make the AI bubble pop already. I'll stop wanking off for a year if you pop it, I swear on my rosie palm.
What good is AI (Score:5, Insightful)
If there are no computers that are able to access it and no new data to feed it?
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they're gonna make their OWN data now, with beer & hookers
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That's the point, they want to rent you access to a computer too
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All hail Multivac
Please deposit 25 cents to continue your session
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Good question. My understanding is this: we're being nudged toward an era where there are only a few powerful computers, we don't own them, but we rent computing power from them. To use in our dumb terminals. Not too much unlike an era we had a few decades ago.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" - Thomas Watson
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I can't name a single product this company makes besides the PlayStation (that's headed for US $1200.00). They're a dead company walking. China is making more desirable products for less money.
Until recently Sony made TVs which they have sold off to TCL. In terms of consumer facing products, they still sell a small amount or smartphones, cameras, and car stereos. In terms of manufacturing, Sony makes many electronic components like CMOS image sensors which are in iPhones and Androids and storage (subject of this article).
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I still use Sony cellphones too. Great cameras, and you can still use their nice camera apps after you de-Google the phone:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech [battlepenguin.com]
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"Why the fuck would anyone buy a modern car?"
I hear you. I haven't owned a car in a very long time but have been thinking of getting one.
I used to tell myself it would be an EV or a hybrid but now i think i'll get something much older and if i want to go electric, i'll convert it myself
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Yeah you definitely don't live in an area of the country with winter or salted roads. A 20 year old car in the rust belt is a rarity.
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I still use Sony cellphones too. Great cameras, and you can still use their nice camera apps after you de-Google the phone: https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
Didn't their cellphones get subsumed by Ericsson?
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https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
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Who's buying car stereos in 2026? How do you fit that into any type of modern car?
I sold my last car, but had I not, I was planning to upgrade the car navigation unit w/ one that supports CarPlay and Android Auto
Re: Sony makes memory cards? (Score:2)
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Amongst (a lot of) other things, they have a successful line of cameras.
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Who knew? I can't name a single product this company makes besides the PlayStation (that's headed for US $1200.00). They're a dead company walking. China is making more desirable products for less money.
In addition to games and gaming consoles and services linked to these, Sony also sells headphones, microphones, cameras and accessories in the electronics space. E.g. they sell the arguably best wireless headset, the Sony wh-1000xm6. As you can see from the name, they suck at marketing. They also provide a lot of OEM audio equipment for cars - they're partnered with Ford, Volkswagen, and Toyota. They produce a lot of imaging sensors, that are used in many cameras and cell phones. They also have a massive mo
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You'd be very wrong. Sony hasn't made camera sensors in a decade. They spun off Sony Semiconductor Solutions as an independent company back in 2016. Also Sony makes a loss on Playstation, but you are close to correct there, 60% of their profit is gaming. A lot of the rest is music and film, followed by professional gear.
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It's probably all shit designed and made in china
Most of the storage / memory business is neither designed nor manufactured in China. There's nothing to design here. It's a chip bought from *Korea* or Taiwan slapped into a small plastic case.
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Sony still makes a lot of professional broadcast gear.
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Who knew?
Literally everyone other than you from the looks of things. Certainly everyone who has a Sony video camera professional or amateur, or a Sony mirrorless professional or amateur all of which I wonder if you know about...
I can't name a single product this company makes besides the PlayStation
I guess that answers that question. This sounds like a *you* problem.
They're a dead company walking
Yeah the company that made $81billion selling products you don't know nothing about about is "dead". Gotchya buddy.
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Who knew? I can't name a single product this company makes besides the PlayStation (that's headed for US $1200.00). They're a dead company walking. China is making more desirable products for less money.
You beat me to it. They used to make Memory Cards back in the 90s & 00s, but ultimately, it was SD that won the format wars when it came to flash storage memory (apart from USB interfaced flash). I recall that Sandisk used to make flash cards of various form factors - CompactFlash, SD, Memory Cards, xD (for Fuji and Olympus) and even a SIM form factor card. Don't know if they still do, or whether most of those have been discontinued
But yeah, it's sad to see so many iconic Sony products, such as the
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Sam Altman's response (Score:4, Funny)
"You don't really need to take pictures anyway - let our AI create any image you want!"
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I shudder to think at the amount of compute required to fill a 930GB CFexpress card full of video.
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Easy: generate random noise in an 8k mpeg2 file.
Done in as much time as it takes to write :-P
Could it be nobody buys them? (Score:2)
Sony has this tendency to sell overpriced hardware. Could it be that nobody was buying Sony's SD cards?
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You mean their Memory Sticks, wihch was their proprietary format?
At any rate, Memory Sticks were only used in Sony gear. So if one didn't have a Sony toy, then one didn't have anything that used a Memory Stick. It was almost a BetaMax of the Flash storage segment in the 90s and 00s
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No one here is talking about memory sticks. The memory stick was abandoned 7 years ago. We're talking CF express cards and SD cards in Sony's Tough line.
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Sony has this tendency to sell overpriced hardware. Could it be that nobody was buying Sony's SD cards?
I mean it's a nice guess, but back in reality land a quick google search could have shown that they are price competitive with other CFexpress cards in their class. Yeah you'll find cheaper, but pair that with slower. Many people need memory cards that actually meet performance criteria. For "nobody buying them" they certainly had a very complete product catalogue spanning many different types, mid end to the high end, from last decades capacity, to current cutting edge.
If no one was buying them then they w
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Sony has this tendency to sell overpriced hardware. Could it be that nobody was buying Sony's SD cards?
I mean it's a nice guess, but back in reality land a quick google search could have shown that they are price competitive with other CFexpress cards in their class. Yeah you'll find cheaper, but pair that with slower.
Yeah, but approximately nobody uses CFExpress. It was an attempt by the CompactFlash folks to stay relevant after the SD card standard ate their lunch. No still camera I've never owned, nor any camcorders (including fairly high-end 4K gear from major manufacturers) uses it. Everybody uses SD. Even most cinema cameras (which as far as I'm aware, are approximately the only gear that *ever* used CFExpress) mostly use SD cards now, or else have removable backs with SATA SSDs or similar.
Put another way, toda
Re: Could it be nobody buys them? (Score:2)
The long-term feedback is still outstanding, but at 0/4 dead after two years they already clearly outperformed SanDisk in my personal experi
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It could be that. What it definitely was, though, is that Sony thought they could make more money selling to data centers than to the public.
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lol they make some of the best SD cards available for photographers.
Best isn't the question. Sales is the question. If you do a poll of photographers, the names you'll hear when you ask what they shoot with are almost always going to be Lexar and SanDisk. Sony won't be in the top five. IMO, that's mostly because they spent a decade with their own Memory Stick nonsense while other manufacturers were claiming the SD and CF card market for themselves. It's hard to force your way into an already crowded field where everyone has already picked favorites.
That's OK (Score:2)
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Re-reading the summary, I had no idea Sony made Compact Flash or SD cards. That market used to be owned by Sandisk and Lexar
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Sony never actually made "Compact Flash" cards. They made XDQ, CFexpress Type A and Type B cards. Compact Flash is effectively a legacy format and that market very much is dominated by Sandisk.
in the XDQ and CFexpress space there were a lot of new entrants into the market. Among some of the best are OWC and Angelbird, both of which can punch above Lexar's weight. Sandisk is effectively not competing in this space. They produce only bottom tier cards with their Extreme Pro being about 1/4 of the speed of the