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Sony Kills Betamax
Hiawatha writes "Years after losing its grip on the consumer VCR market, Sony has announced that it will discontinue the Betamax format. "With digital machines and other new recording formats taking hold in the market, demand has continued to decline and it has become difficult to secure parts," Sony said in a statement." Finally. Although this is the prototypical example of good technology outdone by better marketing, it's an example of a company being stupidly obstinate about wanting to own a system, and shooting themselves in the foot. Update: 08/27 17:52 GMT by H : Yes, they were successful in broadcast, and to some degree overseas - but the commercial success was still severely limited to, say, VHS.
this is really bad news to the TV people, I think, for betamax is vastly superior in quality compared to VHS.
No it's not.
Even if you accepted the fact that Beta was superior to VHS, which many people would disagree with, you'd have a hard time finding even a rabid beta fan who claims it was VASTLY superior. I mean, VASTLY? Come on, that's ridiculous.
Beta lost because of technical inferiority; it just couldn't record enough for people's tastes, and the nebulous clearer image just didn't make up for that fact.