It puts the format in front of potential customers, and it gets the word out so-to-speak. It is better than the alternative, which is to languish in obsecurity forever.
I was at my local Blockbuster today and notice they have 2 sections dedicated to blu-ray movies. Nothing interesting to get though since they do not have any new releases yet.
I rented THE MESSENGERS at my local blockbuster. I probably won't do much more business as I'm with Netflix for now and $5 is kinda steep for a one off rental. If their section expands though, I might change my Netflix for Total Access. For the time being I want to impress upon Netflix that Blu is a popular/supported format.
Absolute fact here. They will only learn when they actually think any of these products is necessary. Currently, they do not. After a nearly a year of owning and demoing the HD disks to friends, I am pretty much giving up trying to convince them that HD disks are the way to go. Their interest in either HD format doesn't even register on the richter scale. Now HD football games, that is another story entirely .
I'm in Blockbuster every week exchanging movies I rented online. My Blockbuster does not have any Blu-ray movies. The employees don't expect that to change soon.
So I called the next closest BB. They don't have them.
So then I called the next closest BB. They don't have them.
And then I called the next closest BB. They don't have them.
The fifth Blockbuster I tried has Blu-ray discs. The store is about 20 minutes out of my way. I haven't yet decided if it's worth the trip.
I was excited when I heard BB was adding BD, but I'm disappointed thus far.
I will have to stop over there and take a look at the selection to see how it stacks up against the store I frequent. Probably do it tonight on the way home from the airport assuming I get in. I understand we are having some weather in Phoenix.
Only the corporatly owned BB stores (about 1400 of their 8000 stores world-wide) has commited to carrying BD titles and most BB stores are not corporatly owned. Your 1 in 5 figure is probably pretty close to what it should be. (Numbers are from the BB WED site, Investor Relations page.)
I was amazed to find BD for rent at my local Blockbuster store as my neighborhood is far from being upscale, this explains it. I rent SD discs there quite frequently and they never had any HD discs before last week, then suddenly there's a quite large section of BD discs. It appeared that they only had one copy of each title and about 5 were rented out. I rented 7 Years in Tibet and was politely warned that I needed a BluRay player for it, not just an upconverting player. I just as politely complained that I was disappointed that they did not rent HD DVD titles. The clerk informed me that BB online did rent HD DVD and I informed him that I used NetFlix for online rentals.
I'm sorry it was the Scottsdale road and Thomas store. I was out running errands that day and had intended to goto the Camelback store but ended up in Scottsdale. Just still had Camelback in my head.
Went to my local Blockbuster(one of the initial trial stores with HD DVD & Blu-Ray) tonight to exchange an online return and was surprised to see they had for rental Shooter on HD DVD and had a placecard for the HD DVD of Hot Fuzz, didn't ask if it was rented out or if it just hadn't come in yet. I was under the impression that they wouldn't be receiving HD DVD in-store anymore, just online.