Can Walmart take down Blu ray ?

[Buckeyefan 1]

Now that Walmart has sided with HD DVD and dumped well over 100,000 players on the market this past Friday, could this spell the end for Blu ray? Blockbuster has sided with Blu ray, and my guess is that a lot of recent new owners of the Toshiba HD DVD players that belong to Blockbuster will jump ship and join Netflix.

I own a Blu ray player, and I'm already frustrated with the wait on many of the Blu ray titles. If my local Blockbuster won't offer HD DVD titles, what good is the HD DVD player I just picked up for $98? None. I'll be joining Netflix very soon.

 

[Seth=L]

There was another article around here about the inevitable doom that Blockbuster faces because of its unwillingness to change with the times. So it is probably for the best that you join the netflix bandwagon, as they are one of the largest reasons why Blockbuster is hurting so bad.

(I am not with netflix, I am with Blockbuster. This is much to my regret )

 

[gus6464]

When I picked up my A3 at BB yesterday I was checking out the selection of titles and the store had over 2x the amount of blu-ray than hd-dvd. I mean the hd-dvd section was just pathetic. Only hd-dvds I will be buying are the ones where I have no choice.

 

[sholling]

When I picked up my A3 at BB yesterday I was checking out the selection of titles and the store had over 2x the amount of blu-ray than hd-dvd. I mean the hd-dvd section was just pathetic. Only hd-dvds I will be buying are the ones where I have no choice.

They only videos that I buy a lot of are classics. At most I might buy 1-2 new videos a year the rest I rent via Netflix. It's like marriage... why buy when you can rent.

I bought a Walmart A2 because it came down to my price point. Walmart sold 100,000 (?) or so because as I've said before that's the price point Joe Sixpack is willing to pay. Now when you add in the fact that maybe 1 Walmart Customer in 10,000 even knew that the A2s were on sale it tells us what the potential market is like. It also gives manufacturers the incentive to crank up the economies of scale and drive everyday pricing of A3 level boxes down to the $125 range where everybody would buy one. The war is now HD DVD's to lose if they don't take this lesson to heart.

 

[mtrycrafts]

When I picked up my A3 at BB yesterday I was checking out the selection of titles and the store had over 2x the amount of blu-ray than hd-dvd. I mean the hd-dvd section was just pathetic. Only hd-dvds I will be buying are the ones where I have no choice.

On line guy. Lots of HD dvds on line at Amazon and they also offer used.

 

[GlocksRock]

You can rent both HD-DVD and bluray from blockbuster online, but thier b&m stores only carry bluray. I'm ok with this, as I have the Toshiba A2 and a PS3 (on the way)

http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/collections/hdDvdPackage

HD DVD isn't on Netflix only.

 

[stratman]

Those that bought are two types, those that think they can turn around and re-sell and make a couple of bucks and those that by industry standards are early adopters (without extra cash to spend), like somebody posted at another thread this is more akin to a fist fight than anything else, this won't define the war (unfortunately.) Small electronic shop owners (the ones that cater to tourists, usually found in major cities' downtown section) probably bought as many units as they could to re-sell to tourists at a premium, also many folks that bought under the illusion that the new players will make their non-highdef TVs look better are in for a rude awakening. I just wonder if any of these units will be returned due to "unsatisfactory" performance.

 

[zildjian]

When I picked up my A3 at BB yesterday I was checking out the selection of titles and the store had over 2x the amount of blu-ray than hd-dvd. I mean the hd-dvd section was just pathetic. Only hd-dvds I will be buying are the ones where I have no choice.

A couple stores here in Louisville had their HD-DVD selection hit pretty hard too on Friday & Saturday with the frenzy of buying HD players. I saw quite a few empty rack spaces. They said they had a lot more HD-DVDs in stock before Friday. The selection could have been poor before hand, I don't know. It certainly was after the gold rush (listening to Neil Young right now... )

Now we wait for Gladiator to be released on HD!

 

[j_garcia]

I was a bit disappointed that I picked up the A2 and now looking at the titles there really are only a few titles that I'm actually going to buy... This will get players out there for sure, but I don't think it is going to be enough to topple the lead BD has. I don't use Blockbuster at all, even though they've chosen Blu.

 

[Sonicus]

There was another article around here about the inevitable doom that Blockbuster faces because of its unwillingness to change with the times. So it is probably for the best that you join the netflix bandwagon, as they are one of the largest reasons why Blockbuster is hurting so bad.

(I am not with netflix, I am with Blockbuster. This is much to my regret)

Blockbuster made their "move" so early in the game it was just stupid.

In reality we all know it was a merchandising deal with Sony/BDA, to attempt to influence the format war - NOT due to customer demand.

After all, it was announced by Matthew Smith, their then-head of Merchandising (Merchandising is the department someone like Sony/BDA would make a money deal with to see that their discs are displayed in Blockbuster stores, and not HD DVD. Ahem ahem...

Matthew Smith has now been recently replaced, and we are all waiting to see what changes BB decides on. Neflix is showing that over half of their HDM rentals are HD DVD, not Bluray. At the very least Blockbuster should realize that this idiotic move is costing them market share to their single most formidable competitor. If I was their major shareholder and saw them IGNORING a major area in which Netflix was taking their market share, I would be furious.

Blockbuster will come around shortly - in fact, they should do so before January, if they are smart.

There are now an extra 102,000 more HD DVD players out there in the wild, thanks to just one short sales event at Walmart, according to the husband of an employee in another forum.

And there are likely to have been another 50,000 sales of A2s and A3s by all the other retailers and Walmart, due to the attention heaped upon HD DVD in this sale - I got some $129 A2 players from Circuit City online this weekend as a result.

Also, there will MANY many more HD DVD players sold in four (4) more big Toshiba sale events before the Holidays.

Blockbuster (and other companies) will have to realize that many of these are presents for people, so that the demand will be through the roof in January for HD DVD movies.

If Blockbuster does not make appropriate plans to prepare for this HD DVD demand and protect their business from Netflix and other competitiors, then they are being incredibly irresponsible, IMO.

Things are happening...

 

[Audioholics]

In hindsight, when Blockbuster - the company that is slowly going under like the Titanic because it took too long to adapt to the market - listed towards Blu-ray, there should have been a collective "oh crud!" at Sony... Don't be surprised if this analogy repeats itself in an upcoming article...

BBlockbuster will come around shortly - in fact, they should do so before January, if they are smart.

They aren't. I would describe Blockbuster's upcoming year as headed for a perpetual reactionary "flail" mode. They will likely continue to trail the market and ride it to the floor.

 

[Gimpy Ric]

I wonder how many Joe Sixpacks bought a wally world HD player, and still uses a non HD tv? I mean, wide screens aren't cheap, as we all know. There are plenty of CRT's with years of service life left in 4:3 format.

I'm Blu ray, and if Block Heads goes HD, I'll buy TONS of used Blu ray titles anywhere I can. If I have a Betamax, shes going down with as many titles as I can find

 

[mtrycrafts]

Now we wait for Gladiator to be released on HD!

OH YES !!! When?

 

[zildjian]

OH YES !!! When?

Don't know. I've heard that it's supposed to be release in France, but I don't know when and haven't seen anything official. Sorry to get hopes up.

 

[jinjuku]

Basically the sentiment around here for years has been the first player to make it sub $100 would win. It should be no suprise that the HD-DVD camp was going to make it there first. Toshiba took a very good look at the ramp to getting to economies of scale. Toshiba knew they could do it quicker and they have. I just don't see Sony being able to to have yet another loss leading product in order to win a format war. The track record for Sony: Betamax, Mini-Disc, Whatever their proprietary walk-man audio format is, UMD on the PSP, and now blue-ray are all headed for the same graveyard.

The reason Sony never wins is becuase their way equals tight controls and lock in along with a price premium to go along with a kick in the teeth they seem to want to deliver to the average consumer.

Why other players in the industry didn't take heed of the history lesson is beyond me. LG, Samsung, Pioneer. You don't learn from history too well do you?

Thank god that the price of an HD-DVD player comming into the silly season and there after will be in the $150 range and going lower. We can get Sony out of this format war and move on.

Ok Toshiba and the HD-DVD consortium, when do I get the managed copy feature you keep touting as a tool to sell the format with?

 

[darien87]

I wasn't really even thinking about getting an HD-DVD player, until a few days ago. But now that HD-DVD players have become so cheap that it's silly NOT to buy them, I picked one up. The fact that I couldn't get Transformers and The Matrix trilogy on Blu-ray was kind of a bummer, but it wasn't enough to make me want an A3. But now that I have one, I went out and bought Transformers and Matrix.

So right now, I don't really care who wins. They just need to get it over with. But I do like my PS 3 MUCH better as a high def player than my A3. Which kinda sucks for me, cuz I HATE Sony!!!