Sony has announced the development of next generation Blu-ray discs which will offer memory space of upto 300 GB initially, and as much as 500 GB and 1 TB with future iterations of the technology. Blu-ray discs currently offer 30 GB of free space.

Sony mentions that this new technology will hit the market sometime in 2015, probably the summer. Sony and Panasonic worked on this new technology jointly “with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage.”

“Recognizing that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage going forward,” Sony wrote on their official website, “particularly given the anticipated future growth in the archive market, Sony and Panasonic have been engaged in the joint development of a standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs.”

The new Archival Disc logo will be used on the new Blu-ray discs once they’re in the market officially.

We don’t have additional information on this yet, but we’ll keep you updated once we do.

Thanks, VideoGamer

Fitch, a credit rating agency, has reduced Sony to Junk status, and another prominent Japanese company Panasonic has met the same fate.

Not a surprise, however, with both these companies posting mega losses with Panasonic posting a mammoth $10 billion loss. I am currently using a Panasonic TV, and it would be disturbing to see Panasonic ceasing TV production. Come on Japanese government, bail them out already!

“This wasn’t an easy decision. But their reputations have been hit so much that it’ll take a long while to crawl back.” said Matt Jamieson, Seoul-based head of corporate research.

Financial Times also reports that other credit agencies have given their opinion on this whole fiasco with some people saying Sony would find it difficult to bounce back due to the high Yen and losing prominence in the technology sector.

“I don’t think the banks will push either of these companies to the wall. But they do need to convince people that tough restructuring moves will be done in good time, while minimising unnecessary damage to healthy businesses,” Damian Thong, an equity analyst at Macquarie Securities in Tokyo, said.

These companies are getting mauled by Korean companies who produce things for a low cost and push it to market earlier. Samsung is one of the biggest companies of this decade and is stealing Japanese companies’ lunch.

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