Is The "Era" of Plasma Coming To An End?

When Plasma Television first appeared on store shelves about ten years ago (In fact, plasma television technology was actually invented in 1964), it was heralded as finally filling the over 50 year promise of "hang-one-the-wall" flat panel TV. However, just as Plasma was making its appearance in the market place, flat panel televisions based on LCD technology were also starting to make inroads. Although there are advantages and disadvantages to both Plasma and LCD television technology, it seems that after several years of co-existence, the popularity of Plasma Televisions is waning, and may actually disappear from the marketplace within the next within the next several years.

For instance, Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba dropped Plasmas TVs from their product lines within the past couple of years, and just within the past few months, both Pioneer and Vizio have announced the dropping of plasma televisions from their product lineup. Currently, the only major plasma television players left are LG, Panasonic, and Samsung. However, although Panasonic and Samsung have shown no signs of ending their aggressive manufacturing and marketing of Plasma Televisions, LG now appears to be on the fence about its long-term future in the Plasma Television market. For additional details and perspective on LG's dilemma, read the report from The Korean Times.

My Perspective: Plasma Television technology does have a lot going for it, not the least is the fact that Plasma televisions produce an image that is closer to a CRT image than its competitor, LCD. In fact, I was really disappointed when I heard the news that Pioneer had decided to drop Plasma, as they were on the forefront of Plasma television technology development, with their outstanding Kuro line.

However, in general, unlike LCD, Plasma televisions took much longer to embrace 1080p native resolution at an affordable price level than LCD, do not look as good in bright rooms, generate more heat, and suck up more AC power than either an LCD or CRT set. Add to this the current concern over excessive energy consumption and the hysteria over "so-called" global warming, the Plasma television has also become a target for possible government restriction, especially in the EU. Couple this with the current downward turn in the ecomony, it may just be that Plasma is getting slowly squeezed out of the consumer electronics market. We will see how all this plays out...