Betamax (also called Beta) is a videotape format created by Sony. It was first released on May 10, 1975 in Japan and November of 1975 in the United States. Because it lost the videotape format war to VHS, Betamax is now obsolete. Despite this, production of new Betamax recorders went until 2002; and Betamax cassettes were available up until March 2016.