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Blockbuster opts for Blu-ray
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 18th June 2007
In case the cost of the movies are too high, you'll be able to rent them at Blockbuster soon! It may help with the cost of the player...
Though this may not sound fantastically important, it is actually a huge victory for Blu-ray backers like Sony. The majority of retail channels have the luxury of riding both horses to see which one wins - there is nothing preventing a retailer like Target from carrying both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. And until a clear winner comes through, it actually is in their best interests.
So if you can't beat 'em in the sales department, what's the other way most of the world gets its movies? No, not The Pirate Bay...
Video rentals account for a large chunk of home movie viewing - enough so that the choice of a movie rental monolith like Blockbuster could easily influence consumer buying patterns. The company's choice to support Blu-ray for the consumer base at large will carry a lot of weight. After all, if you want to go pick up a movie on your way home, your player will need to read it.
The new Blu-ray titles will be rolled out to 1450 new stores, bringing the total hi-def stores up to 1700. HD-DVD titles will continue to be carried in the 250 stores that they were announced in, as well as Blockbuster's online rental service. However, the company has not specified that it will expand its HD-DVD rental collection to include future new releases, either.
"Obviously, when customers are ready we can expand the Blu-ray offering into more stores and add HD-DVD to more locations if that's what customers tell us they want. We'll continue to work with the movie studios to ensure we have the right assortment of products," the company stated in its press release. By the sound of it, the company will adapt to where the market goes in the future - which means the market must be very Blu-ray slanted if the rollout was this one-sided.
This step is probably the first actual weight applied toward one format or another since the format wars began, at least that consumers will feel. More titles have been available on Blu-ray since the start of the year, but neither format has actually "taken off" as the replacement to the DVD. However, Blockbuster's move is going to put one front and center in the consumer eyes of America.
It's too early to crown a king, but could the switch be enough to at least close the coffin on HD-DVD, even if not nail it shut? Tell us your thoughts in our forums.
This article has been edited to reflect Blockbuster's continued commitment to carrying HD-DVD at locations where currently available.
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Comments (18)Stats: 0.122 seconds
<A88>
It's just too bad they didn't pick up on HD-DVD as well.
Blockbuster said that it will continue to rent HD DVD titles at its original 250 pilot stores for high-definition movies, though it is unclear if it will continue to carry new releases or rent out its existing inventory.
Currently you state is will carry "Blu-Ray only"
I do see what you're saying, but I'd hardly say that what I wrote is untruthful.
"America's largest video rental outlet, Blockbuster Video, has opted to rent Blu-Ray only."
and
"The company's choice to support Blu-Ray not just over HD-DVD but to the direct exclusion of the rival format will carry a lot of weight."
That is untrue. There is no two ways to put it. Your claims are false. They may be MOSTLY true, but MOSTLY true is not the same as true.
Furthermore, from msnbc.com: Blockbuster will continue to rent HD DVD titles in the original 250 locations and online, the Dallas-based company said.
So I will once again request that you change your article to reflect factual information. Not what you think is 'basically' true.
On a side note and outside of the staff/reader position, don't you think you could've toned that attitude down a bit (or a lot)? I don't mind people saying "Hey, I think you missed this" but I don't think it quite warrants that type of tone. A little polite courtesy goes a long way...
Blockbuster is losing quite a bit of ground to Netflix, but regardless of that fact, I don't want MY $500 investment to be the format that fails. Every time someone who is on the fence about the issue reads "Blockbuster won't carry them at all" sort of news, it un-necessarily skews the truth further towards Blu-Ray being the winner already.
News should be accurate and truthful without spin. Perhaps in posting that article you had your own agenda to set - maybe in the back of your mind you support Blu-Ray yourself and that subconscious opinion slipped into the article. EVERY media company/news company in the world has SOME sort of agenda. Whether you intentionally did so or not is not for me to decide.
All I wanted was an accurate, no-nonsense/no-spin reporting of the facts, which I quoted earlier in the thread.
1) Blockbuster was still going to rent them in the 250 stores they started with AND online.
2) Therefore they have not chosen "Blu-Ray only" and they did not choose Blu-Ray exclusively over other formats.
Whether you agree with my position on it or not, my examples are absolute truth without spin or fluff. I don't think it's a bad thing at all for people to feel they can absolutely, 100% rely on information they read here as being the complete truth. I hold bit-tech to a high standard. *shrug* I have to - it's one of the TWO hardware sites on the entire 'net that I rely on for information.
What is more interesting to read
"Blockbuster has chosen to go with BD ATM, but in the future may swap to HD-DVD, and they will rent the HD-Dvds they have already purchased"
or
"Zomg blockbuster has gone with BD, a bit hit for HD-DVD, perhaps the format was is coming to an end"
Seriously, if it means much to you, go find the original transcript, bit-tech like just about all other sites do put a spin on things, to make them more exciting, and also to keep you interested in the news your looking at
Take new you read on the web with a pinch of salt, and if your interested, go find out the truth
And also, not to dig at you, but the way you phrased your comment (purposefully or just because of the way people will read on the Internet) you do come across as very demanding, and some people may have found it quite rude, everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but just say it in a nice way and it will often go a long way
p.s. (none of this is meant as an attack at bit-tech, but what you read on the net really does have to be considered carefully (hell even newspapers, possibly worse) because its very easy to miss a couple of bits and suddenly the whole meaning is changed)
i mean, hell i read all of FireFox Myths the other day
After i read this i was very surprised, and somewhat worried, after poking around a bit i found Re: FireFox Myths and after checking the first article, i realised how the author, just by simply quoting certain figures differently, had manipulated the whole truth of the article
p.s. http://www.webdevout.net/firefox-myths is a good list which is much more believable, and seems pretty unbiased
I guess my choice of wording is a) Titles need to be concise - not for spin purposes, but for readability, and b) In my interpretation, this is pretty serious.
Now, I probably should have worried a bit more about how much of my personal interpretation did enter, but I look at it this way:
1) Blockbuster says "We're rolling out Hi-def in a big way - 1700 stores!"
2) BB says "By the way, none of these new additions will be HD DVD"
3) BB says "Blu-ray titles will move into 1450 new stores due to consumer demand"
From a business perspective, of COURSE they will keep the 250 stores with HD DVD. Those copies have already been purchased, it's silly to pull that. But what they have said is that they do not view HD DVD as worthy of continued investment. a 1450 store rollout and it will have no HD DVD. To me, that's choosing a horse and going with it.
What is very important is that buried in their press release (while we're all arguing about whether these 250 stores with an already sunk cost will continue to leave them on shelves) that nobody really picked up was the company saying "We're going this way for now because it's consumer driven, but we could change it if there's sufficient demand." That says 2 things - #1, the horse isn't really as chosen as it appears to be, and #2 the demand for Blu-ray titles over HD DVD is, at least according to blockbuster corporate, so great as to warrant no further investment in HD DVD at the current time.
Again, part of this was poor explanation on my part in the article, which I don't mind being corrected on. Your comments ARE right, but not because I was trying to put spin. I'm simply distilling it one more level - to me, of course they'd keep renting the HD DVDs...they bought them, didn't they? They're stuck with them now and keeping them on the shelves only helps recoup the investment. But them saying "We're not spending any more on this" for a nearly 1500 store roll-out...that to me is saying "we're choosing the other one." At least, that was my thought on it.
To me, emphasising that 250 store fact is more putting spin on things - it simply makes business sense to leave something out there you have already paid for, it's not costing you more to leave it on the shelf. But too much attention is like saying "it's doing well in those 250 stores and online..." and in reality, it obviously isn't or BB would be rolling it out to more stores. What seemed of value to me was the indication of future action, which is to be solely Blu-ray (for now, at least).
Anyhow, sorry for the confusion, but I assure you - if I were putting personal spin on it intentionally, it would lean with a focus toward the HD-DVD portion. :) I don't like formats that are strictly controlled by media giants, I'd rather they be backed by computer companies. ;)
and Da Dego, i agree, BB has 250 stores with HD-DVD stuff, now if they choose BR right now, whats the point in pulling the HD-DVD titles, you've already paid for them, BB will just lose money if they pulled them off the shelves
I think it may have a little spin, but that might just be down to Bits style of writing, which does usually involve siding with the writers opinions, but that doesn't really matter
if you want to know the truth, read the actual news report, if you want to know roughly whats going on, read bit's summary
Personally, id prefer BR, due to larger capacities, i don't know why everyone is so anti-BR, probably cos Sony is significantly responsible for it, but tbh, i don't care, the price of HD stuff is still way too dear for me, and its not really worth it
I think people have proved this just due to youtubes/daily-motion/whatever's success
Wasn't there an article and major press release just a few months ago about Walmart going exclusively with HD-DVD. Why would Blockbuster decide to alienate all those Walmart customers?
As for wal-mart, they look surprisingly unbiased so far. I just went to walmart.com and did a search for "blu-ray" - 254 results, HD-DVD returned 247 hits.
L J
So where are all the people who were calling it done and sealed when Wal-Mart decided to carry cheap-O HD-DVD players? You have to excuse my brashness, this is my first "format war" in my lifetime so it's all new and exciting to me. Ok, well I was alive during the beta max/VHS war, but I wasn't gonna put down my transformers action figures to worry about that stuff.