A change of walkman recording media

Since Sony came out with the first cassette tape walkman, portable music players were always a hot product. But the recording media kept changing. First was tapes, then came CDs, MDs(which never caught on execpt in japan), then MP3 players with flash memory or hard discs, and all sort of other forgoten ones that never were popular.

Last year, the iPod was that star of the market in the US, causing prices of CD and MD models to drop to a level where there tape playing counter parts once had been. In Taiwan, although the iPod was also hot, but "USB thumb drive MP3 players" were more popular because they sell at a price near (or even cheaper) CD players. These tiny players quickly replaced CD walkman into the main show cases.

I always thought it weird that MDs were main stream in Japan. In Taiwan they were simply "highly over priced", so people stuck to CDs, then jumped on to flash based MP3s, by passing the cool but expensive MDs. But I guess the price of MDs were considered acceptable in Japan, and it was so hot that you can even buy albums in MDs instead of CDs. But, intrestingly, even as Sony came out with NetMDs and HiMDs, people are starting to flock to flash and/or HDD based MP3s, with MD sells droping dramatically. (see a Japanese report) I guess everybody likes newer stuff, not just newer modifications.

I, my self,had ditched my tapes , put away my CD player, is using memory cards(flash based) and my Clie PDA as a MP3 player, and considering getting a HDD based player. Maybe a Sony Walkman HD3.

So, guess MP3s are really going to take over. Face the reality and stop being in the way, record companies!