Blu-ray
You and Blu-ray both arrived in 2006.
- Maker
- Blu-ray Disc Association (Sony et al.)
- Type
- High-definition optical disc
- Debuted
- 2006
- Note
- Won a format war
As an Amazon Associate, OlderThan earns from qualifying purchases.
About
As of 2026, it's 20 years old.
Blu-ray launched in 2006 promising crisp high-definition movies on a disc, named for the blue-violet laser that read its tightly packed data. Its arrival kicked off a tense format war against HD DVD, with movie studios picking sides like nervous prom dates.
By 2008 it had won decisively — partly thanks to a little console called the PlayStation 3 sneaking a Blu-ray drive into millions of homes. Then streaming showed up and quietly made the whole victory feel a bit bittersweet.
Blu-ray is the shiny disc that won the war just as the battlefield was being paved over by Netflix: technically triumphant, beloved by purists, and now mostly admired by people who really care about bitrate.
