And here you thought they had already stopped manufacturing VCRs

Priced to move for Esquire readers:  $1039.95 at Ritz Camera.   (About $2,500 in today's dollars.)

Esquire, June 1983

The Long, Final Goodbye of the VCR.  (The New York Times, 7/21/2016)

I admit it; I would have guessed that production stopped years ago.  The last-known company still manufacturing the technology, the Funai Corporation of Japan, said in a statement Thursday that it would stop making VCRs at the end of this month, mainly because of “difficulty acquiring parts.”

No, I didn't watch all 54 minutes.



The opening:  
The RCA Selectavision Video Cassette Recorder you are about to see represents one of the most innovative and exciting developments in the history of home VCR's.  The design concept and electronics engineering it employs place is firmly in the vanguard of consumer video technology  This instrument is so advanced, so outstanding it could very well establish an entirely new benchmark for VCR/s of its class.

Most American consumers, as it turned out, wanted cheap and easy to use. 

Related article:
VCR Sales Up 62% in First Half of Year.  (Los Angeles Times, 7/15/1985)

Americans continue to flock to the store to buy video cassette recorders, 4.7 million of them so far in 1985, the Electronic Industries Assn. said Sunday.