Sony’s next-gen Blu-ray holds 1TB of data

Sony has announced the next-generation of the Blu-ray format: the Archival Disc, a medium that is said to house up to one terabyte of data.

The current version of Blu-ray, which is used for PS4 and Xbox One, is limited to 50GB.

The Archival Disc was developed with Panasonic and is being positioned as a "new standard for professional-use, next-generation optical discs, with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage", according to GameSpot.

The first Archival Disc-compatible systems will be released in summer 2015, with the first versions of the new format offering storage of up to 300GB. Sony will roll out 500GB and 1TB versions at later dates.

In a statement, Sony said: "In recent times, demand for archival capabilities has increased significantly in the film industry, as well as in cloud data centres that handle big data, where advances in network services have caused data volumes to soar."