Looking back at old anime forums, I found a wild stat about how we used to watch shows

I was digging through some old bookmarks from a forum I used in 2008 and saw a poll where over 70% of people said they got their anime from fansub VHS tapes traded at conventions. I found this on a Wayback Machine snapshot of the 'Anime Vortex' message board. Does anyone know when that whole scene really started to fade out for good?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron_mitchell2mo ago

What year did DVDs finally kill that off?

gray8752mo ago

Used to believe it happened around 2003, but sales data shows VHS tapes were still outselling DVDs until late 2002. The real tipping point was 2003, when DVD players hit that magic price point under a hundred bucks. Funny how memory works, right?

mianelson2mo ago

Yeah I always thought DVDs took over earlier too, like maybe 2001. But seeing those numbers makes sense. I remember my family got a DVD player for Christmas in 2002 because they finally got cheap. That's when we stopped buying VHS tapes for good.