最後のVHS - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

具志堅浩二「国内メーカー唯一のVHSデッキが生産終了　やむなき理由と再開の可能性」http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20160721-00000013-wordleaf-bus_all
Chris Baraniuk “Japan 'to stop making VCR machines'” http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36857370
“R.I.P. VHS” http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36866470

唯一のVHSデッキのメーカー、船井電機 *1がVHSデッキの生産終了を宣言した。重要な部品メーカーが撤退を決定したため。最盛期の20分の１ということだが、それでも（北米を中心に）年間75万台売れているというのは凄い。
Chris Baraniukさんの記事に曰く、

Some vintage technologies - such as vinyl - have enjoyed a renaissance.
However, Tania Loeffler, an analyst at IHS Technology, does not think the same nostalgia will ever be felt for VCR-playable formats.
"I don't see VCR becoming like vinyl, where a lot of people appreciated the warmness of how something sounds on vinyl," she told the BBC.
"The quality on VHS is not something I think anyone would want to go back to."
However, she added that a niche market for accessing VHS content, perhaps for archival purposes, would probably mourn the loss of VCRs if they became unavailable.

また、“R.I.P. VHS”に曰く、

Home video changed everything. Now you could record TV programmes and watch them again, rather than having to commit them to memory and then play them back in your head. Plus you could rent movies from the video shop and enjoy them at home, instead of having to sit in a cinema alongside other humans who might not appreciate Tom Selleck or Molly Ringwald as much as you did.

VHSのライヴァルだったベータに関しては、昨年ソニーがベータのテープの生産を停止していたのだった。

*1:http://www.funai.jp/