Sony is finally phasing out the DAT medium (Babelfish translation and community reaction). To be honest, I thought this happened years ago. There are no plans to cease production on the blank tapes themselves, but recording/playback equipment will no longer be made.
Why is this important? Well, it goes a long way towards showing that “obsolete” formats still have some life left as long as a) there’s a dedicated user-base, and b) blank media are still available. Take Minidisc, for example: the format was written off as a failure outside of Japan back around 1998, but Sharp and Sony still make recorders for it, and you can still get media at the local Megalomart.
Minidisc still has a fervent following as a reliable and worthy medium for portable recording. It “failed” because Sony hyped it (along with Phillips’ lamented DCC) as a “replacement” for pre-recorded commercial CDs. This was 1994-1995, when the cassette was being (thank God) phased out of production. Continued...