The MiniDisc: the failure of a forgotten format
A reflection on assumptions & product failure
The last time I visited my parents, my brother handed me a carrier bag. It transpired a recent clear out of the attic had revealed a whole pile of long forgotten, obsolete gadgets. Opening the bag I pulled out a smooth metal box; the weight and feel of it instantly familiar, my once cherished MiniDisc player.
Closer inspection revealed a bag full of brightly coloured MiniDiscs covered in faded handwriting and stickers. Among the piles of copied albums from the likes of Train, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Destiny's Child I spotted the real fruits of my labour; a whole series of compilation discs beginning with the imaginatively titled ‘Radio Mix 1’.
Having sat in the attic for nearly 20 years I did not expect to get the player working but after switching the batteries the screen burst to life with a spinning disc and a friendly ‘HELLO!’ and track ‘NO NAME’ began. The earphones were horribly uncomfortable and the ‘remote’ felt like a cheap plastic toy but the sound was the same as the day I recorded it and transported me back.
Being asked to write about a product failure and the assumptions that lead to its downfall I began at the suggested source of inspiration; The Museum of Failure. Scrolling through, there were many products, unsurprisingly I had never heard of. I was initially shocked to see the Sony MiniDisc listed. I immediately went and got my old MiniDisc player out, intrigued by the idea that a product I had personally used and loved had been recorded historically as a failure.
In the years prior to getting my MiniDisc player I had owned a CD player and before that a Sony Walkman that played cassettes. The replacement of one format with another is progress; it’s only natural that items will become obsolete as the technology they are based on becomes outdated. Surely the MiniDisc just ran its course? Putting aside my biased perspective I did some research. What I hadn’t realised, or perhaps forgotten was the relatively short lifespan and low levels of uptake of the MiniDisc in mainstream use.
Sony first launched the MZ-1 MiniDisc player/recorder in 1992 and ‘MTV Unplugged: Mariah Carey’ became the first MiniDisc to be released in the US.
Sony were confident that this technology would transform the way we listen to music. At the time cassettes were flimsy and prone to snapping. You couldn’t yet record on CDs and they were easily scratched and skipping was an issue when used on-the-go in an early Discman. The MiniDisc should have been a great alternative; it offered the digital sound quality of a CD and the recordability of a cassette. Unlike a cassette, once made, a minidisc recording could be divided, combined, deleted and named.
Unfortunately this new technology came at a cost. A cost that at £463 / $750 proved off putting for most and completely unattainable for teenagers. The other issue was the fact that there were only a small number of pre-recorded albums available on MiniDisc as relatively few record labels embraced the format.
Sony made the mistake of assuming that the benefits of using their ‘superior’ product would be perceived as important enough by potential users to change their existing behaviour and overcome the costly price tag.
Changing the format of your music is a big deal, especially if you already have a large music collection. Unsurprisingly Sony only sold 50,000 units in its first year. Cassettes continued to be used for recording and the Walkman and Discman for portability.
In 1996 further competition came in the form of the newly affordable Recordable Compact Disc (CD-R). The CD-R was being used by professionals from as early as 1991 but the technology was far too expensive for the consumer market. In 1994 the cost of a blank CD-R was around $12 and Sony wrongly assumed that it would take around a decade for them to become affordable. This happened much quicker than they expected and by the late 90s blank CD-Rs sold for under $1.
I was gifted my Sharp MiniDisc player in 1999; just after Sony decided to relaunch this technology, confidently declaring 1998 ‘The Year of the MiniDisc’. Sony backed this with a thirty million dollar marketing campaign and lower priced systems, the cheapest costing £154 / $250. They also licensed MiniDisc technology to other manufacturers, leading to JVC, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sharp all producing their own MiniDisc players.
The Minidisc was relatively popular in Japan and the United Kingdom during the 1990s, but did not enjoy comparable sales in other world markets. It seems that MiniDisc did have a loyal customer base or ‘niche cult following’ of mostly musicians and audio enthusiasts and it appears there is still some interest, judging by the amounts some old MiniDisc players sell for on eBay.
In October 2001, at the launch of Apple’s first iPod, Steve Jobs claimed that ‘listening to music will never be the same again’. That year sales of MiniDiscs and cassettes dropped by 70%. The iPod was not the first MP3 player, (the Rio and the Nomad were currently on the market) but the main point of difference was the customer experience.
The iPod was truly revolutionary with its intuitive click-wheel interface and simple to navigate hierarchical menu system. Apple was the first company to successfully integrate the player with the computer and the connecting software. You could transfer a CD to your device in 10 minutes and to sync your music library you simply had to connect your iPod. The MP3 format spelled the beginning of the end for the MiniDisc. In September 2011 Sony shipped the last MiniDisc Walkman.
