Blu-ray Disc Turns 20, Still a Relevant Distribution Medium

The Blu-ray disc removable storage format turns 20 this year. It was debuted exactly two decades ago at the 2006 International CES, and is the last of the popular optical disc formats before high-speed Internet rendered disc-based distribution obsolete. Blu-ray launched with 25 GB as its initial storage capacity, about six times that of a DVD, later versions of Blu-ray would come with 50 GB in dual-layer types, and lesser known novel formats such as BDXL would double that to 100 GB. This was the first media to enable high definition home video distribution. It would go on to be adopted by Sony for its PlayStation 3 game console, letting developers pack higher resolution game assets into their 25 GB discs than the 8 GB DVDs competing Xbox 360 had to content with. Sony continues to implement Blu-ray for variants of its PlayStation 5 console with optical drives, with PS5 titles using 100 GB variants of the disc format for markets where high-speed Internet isn't pervasive.