By Chad W. Shreeves

It’s been no secret the past few years that physical media has been waning as consumers have been gravitating for more direct to consumer methods such as streaming and downloaded content.

Today, Disney announced they had sold off their home entertainment division to Sony. In a report by The Hollywood Reporter, Disney has now sold the rights to Sony in order to distribute on legacy media including DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K discs.

Disney was for a long time considered a pioneer and an early adopter of home video that helped propel their titles to families around the world. Now that physical discs have become a niche industry, some makers have collapsed their distribution model into smaller divisions.

While many have proclaimed the death of physical media, it’s clear there’s still a market, as directors and other named Hollywood peers have encouraged the retention of physical discs. Christopher Nolan recently encouraged fans to purchase Oppenheimer via physical media.

So there is a market, it will be a smaller niche market, but physical media will stop being mainstream and will be produced in smaller quantities in the near future.