A History of Violence was the last new film released on VHS tape, according to this story at JoBlo. It got me thinking about a few years ago, it was hard to imagine the end of VHS. Now that it has ended, I’m wondering what were the “lasts” of other things.
For example:
VHS Tape: A History of Violence
Nintendo Gamecube: Madden 08
Nintendo 64: Derby Stallion 64(Japan Only)
Any others?
Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits”, Warner Bros., 1988. The Last 8 Track. Probably.
What else is defunct? Edison Cylinder? 78 RPM Record?
thwartme
Edison continued pressing cylinders right up till they shut down the record operation in 1929. True to old Tom’s stubborn nature, they had relied on his technology until far too late. Only at the bitter end did they start making conventional “needle type” 78s that anyone could play, and by then, it was too late.
78s hung on until 1958 in the USA, 1960 in the UK, and 1974(!!!) in India. Appropriately enough, the last 78 release there was by Lata Mangeshkar, the Hindi singer who for many years was Guinness’ most prolific recording artist. Cite.
I thought 33 1/3 vinyl LPs were well and truly defunct by now. No?
Not at all. Lots of current bands release albums on vinyl. Newbury Comics in Boston has a whole section.
No kidding? I haven’t seen a vinyl record in going on ten years. Wow.
The new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, is even available on LP from Best Buy
Regarding the OP:
Laserdisc: Sleepy Hollow, Bringing Out the Dead (2000, US), Tokyo Raiders (2001, Japan). Special pressings continued after-- I recall a repressing of Dragon’s Lair for the arcade collector market taking place ~2002 or so.
D-Theater: I, Robot (2004). D-Theater was a D-VHS variant that included copy protection. Commercial releases on non-copy-protected D-VHS still trickle out from time to time from various HD suppliers like HDNet.
CED: Pinnochio (1986); according to some CED collectors, RCA actually had to restart their last, shuttered CED plant to produce this one, which points to it being made after the farewell discs made for plant employees.
HD-DVD: P2: A New Level of Terror (September 2008); this is the last release due to a quirk-- the discs were pressed earlier but the release was cancelled when Toshiba pulled out of the market. Wikipedia lists the last official release as Freedom #6 from Bandai, in June 2008. However, a wholesaler bought up the P2 lot and then released them in September. (Bandai supposedly is looking at releasing the last chapter of Freedom in HD-DVD at some point despite the format’s demise, so who knows if P2 is really the last release?)
I couldn’t find a mention of a last Betamax release (but did find an article in the LA Times that claimed that Disney routinely released on Beta until the mid 1990s, and that Paramount would fill orders for 20 or more copies of their movies on Beta for a few years after that!), VHD (a grooveless capacitance disc format in Japan), Video 8, V2000, or Cartrivision.