Blockbuster Blu-ray announcement: Master Thread - Page 4

So let me get this straight.

j6p walks into Blockbuster, only sees Blu-ray in the store. Goes to his local B&M store and finds out a Blu-ray player is still way to expensive for him to simply buy so he can rent these movies. So not only does he not buy the $500-$1000 player, but he doesn't rent any Blu-ray movies.

And HOW is this good for Blockbuster again? Cuz I hate to tell you, most people are not running for a BD player simply because of this.

The heading is "is the war over"... Thats how missing 1 word can misconstrue a whole statement.

According to Blockbuster they have more than 8,000 stores throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. With more than 2,600 stores outside the United States.

So they have around 5,400 stores in the United States.

HD DVD = 250 stores (5%)
Blu-ray = 1,700 stores (31%)

Here is one thing we can get straight. Even with the lower prices for HD DVD players for the last year HD DVD didn't manage even 30% of rentals between the formats in Blockbuster's test, according to what they said. This is the kind of thing that could be used by a salesman trying to sell somebody a Blu-ray player and including it as one advantage over an HD DVD player.

--Darin

i think toshiba was well aware of sales and rental figures and decided to cut prices in order to bolster them.

Well at the time it was originally posted it wasn't known for sure if Blockbuster had actually announced this. At this point though it looks pretty official to me though I think the thread title could be a bit more descriptive along the lines of:
Blockbuster announces that it will soon offer Blu-ray movies in 1,450 of its stores



Well I am a bit curious to know why you look through the official PS3 forums if you don't own a PS3, but leaving that aside a small sample of posters in a thread saying that they have started watching more Blu-ray movies is not the same as knowing what PS3 owners will do in the future. After all once a person starts watching Blu-ray on an HDTV I personally don't think it is likely that someone would go back to DVD. Just my opinion of course.



Exactly, no one knows what the majority of PS3 owners will do in the future and for all we know the percentage of PS3 owners buying Blu-ray movies might even increase in the future.



It was just a suggestion and why exactly would you expect him to dump his HD DVD player?



No, but I will give you a bit of free advice. Just because someone suggests something doesn't mean you have to agree with them and you certainly don't have to ridicule them for it. Personally I have had many people, one of which was Amir, suggest to me that I should buy into both HD formats. And note that this was after I bought a PS3 and started buying Blu-ray movies.



As many times as he wants to I think. No offense but why exactly does that bother you? If you really don't like this news it would probably just be best to not read this thread since a lot of happy Blu-ray supporters are going to be posting here.

I don't know if this will lead to a loss for HD DVD, but this thread made me think of this picture:

The Last Great Act of Defiance (a mouse flipping off an eagle).


--Darin

I wonder if Blockbuster will carry pretty much all new major releases in all 1450 stores. Many titles haven't sold 5k copies total and that would be 1450 by itself at just one per store.

--Darin

Good point.

I guess the worst case scenario is that BB buys 1450 extra copies and adds 1450 x (number of new titles) purchases to Blu-rays numbers each week.

I am an avid HD DVD supporter and I can tell you this is not good news at all for the HD DVD camp;

A major player in the video industry has choosen BD. They have not committed 100% yet because as pointed out, it is not going to be at all BB's nationwide.

There is nothing in the HD DVD arsenal that can be used to counter this in the next 30 days and the S300 streets tomorrow. If Sony wanted to they could start their own "buy a player and get 5 free BD's to go with it." Panasonic is already doing this with their latest offerring and no rebate BS - they are in the box with the player and they are good titles - not like alot of the B titles that Toshiba is offerring.

It only takes one announcement like this to get a rallye going and that is what I see happening.

Oh well - only spent $500 for the HD DVD player and the movies I own. And it is a hell of an upconverting DVD player of which I have 350+ DVD's.

In your attempt to try and discredit me, I'll have you know that I was once a Sony loyalist dead set on a PS3 until I got tired of the constant broken promises and arrogance being displayed with such wonderful remarks such as "people will buy a PS3 even if it has no games".

Nothing like calling me a tool, and expecting me to buy your $600 console.

Anything else, or do you want to play cop and question me all night?

Cmon guys what is all the fuss about Blockbuster not carrying HD-DVD's anymore they haven't been relevant since the late 90's when renting DVD's was all the rage. Since the inception of VOD on Cable and Sat systems BB has been losing business with store closings because of this. I say yay to BB doing this maybe now they can really dig their own grave. Netflix can only benefit from this as more customers will come to them for their HD-DVD needs. BB has been digging their own grave for years especially with the ridiculous late charges which people got fed up with. BB say goodbye to you precious business because you will not be around much longer.

I will quote Mark here,

Neither BB or Netflix or Hollywood Video "buy" their DVD's, or HDD's. They work on a revenue sharing program with so much of the rental fee going to the renter and so much for the studio.

In essence they get them for free.

rental units don't count as sales, bb shares revenues with studios.

I think that Sony should consider a 5 free rentals at selected Blockbusters with purchase instead. That is, if stores like Best Buy are okay with that.

--Darin

Exactly, I really hate Blockbuster, ever since I went with Netflix I haven't stepped into a BB for over a year. Those late charges are definitely ridiculous and I guess they need to have that in order to keep their profits up. Hopefully this just gives Netflix more business.

good idea!

Considering the low sales volume that both formats have, I wonder if any predictions at this point would be a bit premature. By the looks of it, this (potential) move by Blockbuster isn't actually taking anything away from HD-DVD. Once we start to see that with either one of the formats, then perhaps we'll be able to make more definitive statements about the outcome of this so-called format war.

Interesting. I honestly didn't expect a major retailer to go exclusive at this point in the game. It's obviously good news for Blu-ray and bad news for HD DVD: an independent retailer with millions on the line found it financially viable to go Blu-ray exclusive based on pilot data (the 250 stores that carry both). You can't even blame Sony for this one.

How much of an effect this has remains to be seen. I think the main effect wont really be sales so much as public perception. They'll see Blu-ray when they rent movies and thus feel like it is the defacto "new" standard. If I were a J6P I pretty sure I wouldn't buy the format I *can't* rent at my local video store.

I'd say that HD DVD could weather this particular storm on it's own with Universal's continued support and WB's favortism, but if any other major retailer goes exclusively Blu that will likely signal the beginning of the end for HD DVD. Too early to say now, though, so I hope fanboys on both sides will keep it in their pants.

I have a PS3 and I use it for both gaming and blu-ray. Right now with lack of games I use it more for watching movies. As more games come out, I will continue using it for blu-ray movies or I'll buy a stand alone blu-ray player and use that. So no, when more games come out I will not watch less blu-ray films.

Of course, as you should. I did say many and not all.

I don't understand all the fuss. Here in Europe Blockbuster has always carried only Blu-Ray, but many independent rentals carry HD DVDs anyway. If you want to rent HD DVD you can.

How big is the rental market share of Blockbuster in the US? Does anybody have numbers? Is it really so big?

BB has been losing money and market share for a long time. This move won't help them gain it back.

In 2006, the total revenue from DVD rental is $7.5 billion versus $16.6 billion for sales. How much of that 7.5 did BB get? unknown.

But rentals are up 32% while sales are flat.

In 2005 sales increased by 300 million while rentals add a billion. This has been going on for the last 3 years, here in the USA

http://www.dvdinformation.com/News/press/CES010807.htm

Blockbuster is the largest with 5,803 stores with Movie Gallery, who also owns the Hollywood Video chain, second with over 4,700 stores.

I haven't been in a B&M video store for years and have been using Netflix. I've been happy with my A1. But I suppose I need to reconsider, now that you've pointed out that it would be more convenient to overpay for a second movie player and have to go get the movies instead of having them delivered to me. I think I speak for all of us when I say "thanks" for helping us realize the error of our ways.

I think it's way too early for any of this stuff, but that's just me - a lowly dual format owner. It's easy enough for BB to change their minds and start carrying both formats.

What happens when Warner starts they TotalHD discs?

Chris

Thanks. Is there any information about Netflix or others rentals at least?

Well said.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this decision was driven more by limited shelf-space than one based on other factors. Consider this: the bulk of Blockbuster's shelf-space is dedicated to DVDs (as it should be). They also have a sizeable portion dedicated to various video game systems, with the PS3 being one of those. That doesn't leave a lot of free space for high-def DVDs, especially two different formats. Blu-ray becomes the easy choice, then, simply because Blockbuster is already catering to PS3 owners (by way of the PS3 games they rent). I wouldn't be surprised if they positioned the Blu-ray movies near the PS3 games.