Sony Will Finally Stop Producing Betamax Tapes, Decades After Anybody Actually Cares

Read: This Guy Is Trying to Collect Every Single Copy of the Movie 'Speed' on VHS

Sony has decided to stop producing new Betamax tapes by March 2016, the Guardianreports. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that it took them this long to decide to discontinue the tapes.

Long ago, in the days before Popcorn Time and Netflix, before The OC was available for streaming on The CW's website, back before Blu Ray beat HD DVD or people rented VCRs at video stores, even before a few brave people bought movies on giant records that you had to flip over halfway through, there was the great VHS vs. Betamax battle of the mid 70s.

Looking back, Betamax was the superior product. It hit the market first and offered better video quality, but better doesn't always mean most successful—look at Hydrox cookies, for example—but VHS won the war and Betamax was relegated to a legacy of trivia questions and mediocre jokes on Fox sitcoms.

Now, 40 years after it was first introduced, 30 years after it lost to VHS, and 20 years after everyone stopped caring about any video format built around magnetic tape, Sony's finally throwing in the towel.

If you are a videotape purist still refusing to trade in your tape rewinder for a Hulu Plus account, now's the time to get while the getting's good and stock up on Betamax tapes. Don't bug out about the death of analog too much, though—Sony is still cranking out VHS tapes and has no plans to stop.