Panasonic’s Vice President of the TV division confirms to The Verge that Panasonic has ceased plasma development. Sales will continue into 2014 at the very least but OLED is the future for Panasonic.

Panasonic confirms exit from plasma TVs

The first rumors about Panasonic's exit from plasma TVs surfaced in December 2012 and in March 2013 it was reported that plasma developement has stopped.

Panasonic Display Vice President Kiyoshi Okamoto now confirms the rumors. He says that plasma development has stopped and that the 2013 plasma TVs that are appearing in stores use Panasonic’s “last plasma panel”.

Panasonic has ceased plasma development but sales will continue into 2014 at the very least

He stresses that Panasonic will continue production and sales. The current 2013 line-up will be sold into 2014 at the very least, he says.

With Panasonic’s decision to exit from plasma TVs, an era ends. Panasonic’s plasma TVs have been recognized and applauded as the best TVs available by many experts in recent years. The 2013 models and the ZT60 flagship will be the last and best ever from the Japanese TV manufacturer.

OLED is Panasonic's future

Panasonic will instead focus on OLED technology for TVs. Kiyoshi Okamoto says that Panasonic has already moved several plasma engineers to the OLED division.

- “OLED is one of the key future products” he says.

Panasonic unveiled this 4K OLED-TV at CES

However, he offers no further details regarding OLED-TVs from Panasonic. Panasonic unveiled its first OLED-TV with the 56" 4K OLED TV at CES 2013 back in January but no plans to sell the TV has been announced.

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Don't know much about OLED tv's

But shame plasma is being done for. It's better than LCD tv's

Sadly OLEDs arent perfect. The blue emitting diodes die faster the whole technology isn't as durable as LCD or Plasma. Even burn in does exist.

There is just one almost perfect technology its Crystal LED it actually has 3 different colored LEDs per Pixel all of the advantages of OLED none of the disadvantages. I hope CLED will become relevant in the future.

Oled isn't perfect either and if they don't manage to improve durability people are going to be dissapointed.

Maybe Panasonic can become the best OLED TV manufacturer like they were the best Plasma manufacturer.

Well plasma used to have some problems but then they fixed them quickly and any of those problems are the same as LCD or better.

i think the only thing you have to worry about in Plasma's is still the laying on the side problem.  Or is that fixed?

So hopefully they fix any of those OLED problems you mention, or else go to CLED quickly.  Again I haven't researched any of this stuff at all.  Last time was getting TV it was only Plasma or LCD, so i know about them.  No other new techs on my knowledge.

Of course the Samsumg PLASMA are better today than Panasonic.

So why is this bad news? If it can't produce plasma's, LCD's and led's efficiently and can't compete with LG and Samsung then it should exit. Same thing for Sony and Sharp.

Ah dang Plasma was doing the best plasma TV :(.

they are moving on.... it is not as bad as it sound...
never seen an OLED tv though... today's standard is good anyways, so it can only go up

kowenicki said: Well you cant make money from TV's in Japan. Slightly off topic, I was in Harrods the other week looking at the new TV's in there. The Samsung, LG and Sony ones looked great... if stupidly expensive. My wife bought some Alessi cutlery instead.

What do you mean? Don't they have new products for all price segments?

4K OLED? Holy fuck do want.