Blockbuster Picks Blu-ray

191 0

Just a quick pointer to some good news coming out today regarding Blu-ray. As some of you may have read, Blockbuster announced that Blu-ray disc will be the exclusive HD movie format for 1,450 of their 1,700 stores in North America. This is a big win for the Blu-ray format, as Blockbuster noted they based their decision on consumer feedback:

“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” said Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbuster, to The Associated Press.

By mid-July, they will have over 170 Blu-ray movies in stock. You can read the official Blockbuster announcement here.

Comments are closed.

191 Comments

  • excellent news, now if someone could “take care” of Bill Gates, the format war will be all but won.

    btw, I meant kill

  • Touchdown for Sony.

  • YEAH!!! Thats one for the good guys ;)

  • 2 things needed:
    improved Blue-Ray releases in the UK
    Universals catalogue as their released have all been blockbuster titles.
    Then it’s over in the UK

  • HD-DVD go down.

  • Very Nice *Borat Voice*

  • Nice Blow out Sony!! congrats*

  • It just goes to show that when you have two movie formats that consumers are ambivalent about, they’ll choose the one that works with the player (read: PS3) that they’ve already bought. God bless Blu-Ray and its PS3 trojan horse. As if anybody was going to go out and buy a standalone HD-DVD player…come on. You just don’t need it. But if it’s already bundled into my game console? Sign me up.

  • congratulation to Sony and the blu-ray group

  • Sony re-release a lesser console version with only 2 usb ports, no memory card readers, no wi-fi, 20 gig with emulation ps2 engine. Sell it at $350-425 with even more rebates for Blu ray movies. You will win sales, and the format war. Once that is done, release a psp to ps3 video program so psp games can be upscaled on a HDTV set but still played on psp. This will boost sales of both. Also import 90% of Sony Online Entertainment games to the PSN. Games like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune! will be huge hits and take some of the casual market away from the Wii. Add online gaming with this and you have a huge party hit. Too sway over more “hardcore” gamers, put more PS1 classics to the store and work a deal With squaresoft to release Final fantasy games (ps1) through downloadble applications with the mandatory High Definition touch. Once the Gun con is released with Time Crisis 4, re-release old school shooters such as: Lethal enforcers, Carn-evil, Area 51, L.A. Gunners, and various other arcade shooters perhaps even the virtua cops series. I am sure Capcom and Midway won’t mind working with these idea’s.
    Good job not forgetting the PS2 users, with new games being released still for the ps2 a year after the arrival of the ps3!

  • i think everyone knew blu-ray was going to win once the PS3 came out with it

  • omegasyde verry bad idea.

    Microsoft has now 3 xbox360’s and it sucks voor devs …What must they do..they cant make games that use the HDD cos 1 xbox360 model has no HDD. They cant make the games with only a HDMI 1.2 output cos 2 of the xbox360 dont have a HDMI 1.2 output.
    Two USB ports and no cardreaders?? Common The PS3 is a complete machine like is is and like it must be, not a console like 360 a wannybee PS3……

  • hotsauce2 : I agree with you :)

  • This is great. Since Blu-ray movies cost the same to rent at Blockbuster, if you have a PS3 you have no reason not to rent the Blu-ray version of movies.

    Go on, enjoy it! I love my high-def Blu-ray movies.

  • This is awesome!!!!!

  • Blu-ray is the way to go. I mean seriously it’s the next step in everything media.

    What I love most? the amount of content you can put in there.

  • HD-DVD never actually stood a chance without Disney/Sony/HP behind it.

    HP is important as they are currently the number one PC seller, but i think component makers like asus and hitachi shouldn’t be underestimated either as without them the prices are never going to drop.

  • I never knew the NON INTELLIGENCE of child gamers of today. Back in the day we knew what a system was all about because it was hard enough to get ONE nevermind more. I have every system known to man. Hey i grew up with Atari (thanx to my older brother).

    So why do people question PS3?

    Did PS not sell 100 Mill?

    Did PS2 not sell 115 mill?

    Did SONY not CREATE GTA?

    Lets be frank, when the whole world cried “SONY don’t sell this game”, with the columbine shootings, and POOR AMERICAN PARENTAL GUIDANCE, Sony still did. All the other consoles were scared to touch it because of the heat of news that came with it. Not SONY. They sold it. So as I see it, if it wasn’t for SONY, take-two might have actually had to take-three, four, maybe even five more tries before they could have yelled ACTION on GTA.

    Also PS3 brings CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY. As did the PS1, PS2, and PSP. Let’s be serious, hello!!! thats why developers love to make games for SONY.

    So before everyone gets their panties in a bunch and doesn’t want to cough up $600, DONT COMPLAIN. Get a JOB. I work 9-5 and i got 2 PS3’s (one for my brother as a gift for getting me my first NES).

    It’s not alot of money. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. Ask the 360 owners. Most of them are on their second 360.

    Also alot of WEBSITES dont talk how the Original XBOX did. It wasn’t out that long before they called it quits and made the 360. No good games. Halo wow. 1 game. 23 million XBOX sold.

    Gears of War. Wow now 2 games. I dont get it? Are they making ONE GAME per NEW CONSOLE?

    Get with the program.

    PS3 QUALITY

    360 QUANTITY

    you buy your ford, while i drive my MERCEDES.

  • @ the_jump_off I agree with you 100% Yet I have to say easy on the ford bashing I have owned 3 fords and am currently loving my new Ford Fivehundred also have a F-150 :)

  • Now a major flop by Micrsoft which will get some massive bad hype: Sony will have a 1-1.5 year lead on PS3/Blu-Ray sales before Microsoft releases a stand-alone Blu-Ray drive. It will be a year or more since the war still isn’t over and a 4-5 month development and prouction stage will be required once they decide to released a Blu-Ray drive. This is will mean many 360 owners will have purchased a PS3 for the Blu-Ray drive long before Microsoft had entered the market. The Blockbuster Blu-Ray support has done much more then help the Blu-Ray format. I’ve never regreted and never will regret getting my PS3 shortly after launch.

  • I hope this means that I’ll actually be able to pick up some Blu-Ray at the local Blockbuster without having to wait FOREVER for the online ones to be available. Blockbuster.com has a ton of Blu-Ray listed on their site, but very few are available without a very long wait.

  • well i’m excited about this, i really want blue ray to win.

  • yeah, really good news

  • Sony or whoever should make a move now and get Universal to switch to blu-ray! Universal got all the movies that I like to see on blu-ray!

  • Congrats on defeating HD-DVD, Sony. Now please focus on defeating Wii and XBOX 360 games by more exclusive games for PS3!!! I am upset that 360 owners get exclusive episodic content for GTA 4, and exclusive on Splinter Cell: Conviction. (Thank God for getting Haze on PS3) I will feel much better when Rainbow Six Vegas is coming for PS3 on Tuesday.

  • good job, not that i have visited a blockbuster in years… but i’m sure it’ll help your bottom line.

    now how about putting out a VGA cable so I can play the ps3 on my projector (vga only input). not buying a ps3 until then.

  • What is that noise, oh another nail on the HD DVD coffin.

  • Congrats Sony, others thought that Blu-Ray would follow Beta Max but I knew you learned from your mistakes!!!

    Off Topic: What would be really cool is a Super Smash Bros. but with Sony characters (Since we all know Nintendo is the enemy, and is sadly winning the Console race by a landslide) if you could get Sega involved think of the possiblities, Sonic killing Kratos, you know what I mean, I would love to play that on PS3, PS2, or a better idea: PSP!

    BTW: Both the PSP and PS2 outsold the PS3 in May, maybe it is too pricey, even I am tempted to purchase a 360 Elite instead. Sorry Sony.

  • Fantastic news! :)

  • Blue-Ray is the better format and is winning as expected.

  • peaced out HD DVD

  • I’m with Netfick for Blue-ray, hmm now need burner… Copy movie and games it fun :P

    God how far have we come from VHS, even so Beta Max was better.

    Fox

  • I hope Blue-ray will be a winner and ps3 will have more games on its own platform!

  • Sweet!, I hope it they get them in my store!, no more renting DVDs

  • I’m looking forward to this, however on the day of the announcement I called my local Blockbuster (near Seattle) and the person who answered the phone had no idea what Blu-ray was. She was completely lost. I had to explain to her what it was and why they should have it.

    After a moment, she handed my call off to her manager who, thank goodness, knows what Blu-ray is, knew about the Blockbuster announcement, and then tried to answer my questions.

    He stated that to the best of his knowledge, Blockbuster didn’t mention which of their stores would start carrying Blu-ray discs and that he hasn’t been informed that his store would be carrying them. Also, he doubted that any of the stores in our area would be carrying them either since, as of now, Blu-ray seems to be a “niche market” and not yet mainstream. This was a bit disheartening to say the least.

    Not to be deterred, I wrote an email to Blockbuster Corporate asking if they had a list of stores that’ll be carrying Blu-ray disks next month. Aside from the initial reply of “I’ll send this on to the appropriate department”, I haven’t heard back. That was a week ago.

    I think it’s time to write again…

  • How many times can Sony release crap for information and think it’s sufficient? This dev interview SUCKS!

  • OK, I finally heard back from Blockbuster this evening. Here’s what they said…

    Thank you for your feedback regarding our decision to expand our Blu
    ray
    inventory in more than 1,700 corporate owned stores nationwide. Please
    note that this expansion will not impact the current inventory of HD
    DVD
    titles in store or online. Blockbuster continues to carry HD DVD in
    about
    250 stores and also offers HD DVD titles online.
    We are not endorsing either format and have no desire to lead customers
    to
    a certain format choice. Our goal is to offer customers the most
    convenient access to the movies they want and that means giving them
    the
    best availability and the best selection possible in the formats they
    prefer.
    Blu ray rentals have been outpacing HD DVD rentals in our stores where
    we’ve been offering the high definition format 70 to 30 percent in
    2007.
    Additionally, because more studios support the Blu ray product, there’s
    a
    wider selection of titles available on this format to offer to our
    customers.
    While it is still too early to say which high definition format will
    become the industry standard, we will continue to closely monitor
    customer
    rental patterns both at our stores and online, so we can adjust our
    inventory mix accordingly and ensure that Blockbuster is offering
    customers the most convenient access to the movies they want, in the
    format they want. That may mean in the future that we will add HD DVD
    titles to additional stores.

    If you have any additional concerns, you may contact the BLOCKBUSTER
    Rewards Member Service Center at 1-800-406-6843 or by e-mail at
    BlockbusterRewards@blockbuster.qrs1.net.

    Sincerely,
    Crystal
    BLOCKBUSTER

    I wrote a nice email back to Crystal thanking her for the response, but that my original question had to do with the location of the 1,700 stores and if the one near me will carry Blu-ray.

    Hey, at least I know they’ll eventually answer my email.

  • Oh, and I tried the suggestion on post #73, but I still can’t get my Gravatar to show up.

    Arghhhh

  • Woohoo! Something happened overnight and I now have a Gravatar. Still no response from Blockbuster…yet.

  • Sweet finally hd-dvd gets what it deserves. I can’t wait to see the day microsoft offers a blu-ray drive for the 360.

Please enter your date of birth.

Date of birth fields