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I, Robot: Fox Keeps Screwing Fans of Extras (1 Viewer)

Travis Brashear

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Well, supposedly, yes, but one would think the same from I, ROBOT. That's my whole point--regardless of the fact that the titles of all the previous special features have been bullet-pointed on the press release, we still won't know until the title is released and someone reviews it well and thoroughly if the special features appear in their full, unedited form.
 

Travis Brashear

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Hmm, way off the mark there--you forget the consumer who a) for whatever reason (financial, young consumer just getting into collecting, etc.) never got the SD special edition but b) is very much interested in bonus features, as well as c) the best video and audio available in the marketplace. Now that consumer has to make a choice between the two (or double the financial impact of the purchase by buying both) when there's 50 f-in' gigs on the Blu-ray!
 

Jim_K

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But on the flip side by not purchasing their product, you're in a sense sending the message (intentionally or not) that you're not interested in catalog titles.

It's a no-win situation.

Are the Fox bean-counters savvy enough to compare their figures to other studios sales numbers then determine that their low sales are due to people boycotting their product because their catalogs are priced 25-30% higher than other studios or because they trimmed 25% of the supplements? Don't know, but I highly doubt other studios would freely give Fox (a competitor) their sales data.

Or after crunching the numbers for Predator, Master and Commander, Patton, Butch Cassidy, etc, etc they just determine that there's no market in HDM for catalog titles and just pull the plug on future releases. Very possible.

Do I agree their catalog product is overpriced? absolutely. I'd love to pay less, I'm not a complete idiot.

Does the pricing deter a purchase from me? yes, quite a few times (ID4, Sand Pebbles, being the latest examples)

Does cutting supplements bother me? yes, I think it sucks. But it's just not a deal breaker a lot of the times.

Do I flat out boycott all their product? absolutely not. I make a case by case judgement based on just how much I like the title. There's just not enough content being released for me to go passing up favorite titles as a matter of principle, but that's me.

Give me $60 to spend and I'd purchase 2 favorite films at $27 each rather than 3 titles at $20 each I'm only luke-warm about.

Not defending Fox at all here believe me, just playing Devils Advocate. ;)
 

Robert Crawford

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It's not a no-win situation if we continue to buy catalog titles from other studios which should tell Fox that their catalog pricing is too high in comparison to their competition.





Crawdaddy
 

Bleddyn Williams

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Well I have the two-disc version too. The R3 version, which came as two discs right off the bat (unlike Fox's crappy "single disc first, two discs later" ploy in the US).

I do care, though - when a blu version comes, it should feature all the extras from the already released SD. That way, we can get rid of our old DVD versions. There's no reason in the world why Fox needed to truncate the extra material for I, Robot, except to hold something back for another release.

Same with ID4 - the making of material previously available is replaced by a game no one will play, and a complicated index & search feature that surely no one with a life will ever have the time to mess around with.

Now I have these films on blu-ray, I don't want to keep my DVD versions, but Fox forces you to do so if you wish to keep all the extra material. It seems that almost every release from Fox is somehow incomplete so at the back of your mind you know what's coming.

Nobody is as blatant at screwing you as Fox.
 

Chris S

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This is a good point. Lord knows Warner has taken quite a toll on my paycheck with their catalog releases.
 

TonyD

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i won't buy any ANY fox discs until they are priced to sell, not priced to gouge.
 

MatthewA

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If you even want to start to make them a difference, you need to write to them with your complaints and reservations. It wouldn't hurt to include a list of titles you would buy on Blu-Ray.

Stranger things have happened.
 

Travis Brashear

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Their prices are only half the problem; they could lower I, ROBOT to $5 and it still would have truncated extras. They have to improve on both fronts--price and supplements--to succeed, especially with hi-def media being in as precarious a position as it currently is.
 

troy evans

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Yes, but in Fox defense, the price is number one of two of thier biggest issues. Sony, Lionsgate and even some Disney Blu-ray releases have not included all previously released bonus material as well. What they have done is maintain a presence in the market. Something Fox has not done. At least not well. Perhaps that will change in the coming months. However, since people still buy the Blu-rays from the other studios who don't include everything, Fox has no reason to think extra features are that important. Price on the other hand would help them greatly and if Fox Blu-ray titles did drop to $5.00 each they would fly off shelves, special features or not. Another example of where Fox misses the mark is with this weeks release of The Seeker. The dvd release has nothing on it in the way of extras, so where the hell is the day and date Blu-ray? If they release this a month or two from now who cares. They will have missed the prime buying new release timeframe that the sd dvd had. That can hurt more than pricing. I feel this special features thing is more than a Fox issue and is an issue with Blu-ray as a whole. Fox, like many here have already said, is doing this to have the double dip later. The problem isn't so much with Blu-ray as the entire sd dvd market as well. How many times have we seen the same film get released in two or three or four different versions? Too many. Sd dvd started this shit and sadly Blu-ray is following the same marketing ploy. If anyone bought the first release of any dvd and stopped there, great. Myself and many others on here more than likely bought the other versions as well. We are all to blame for what the market has become and unless we all stop getting the featureless/watered down features dvd releases it'll never change. That's hard to do when you're like me simply because, I want Blu-ray to succeed. I'm affraid if we all don't support it, then, we'll lose it. I don't want that and I'm sure many here feel the same. So, in the case of special features, I'll have superior PQ and AQ over them any day.
 

Paul.S

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Fox sets a crappy BD supps precedent here. They could have asterisked those SD DVD Collector's Edition featurettes whose titles they bullet point here and--right next to where the box reads "Special Features Are Not Rated"--stated "* Special Features Are Edited From Previous DVD Release."

High Def Digest's Kenneth Brown does an outstanding job of describing exactly what's 'missing' on the BD compared to the SD DVD CE in his thorough review.

 

Dale MA

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I'll stick with the DVD. I'll also join the Fox boycott, they'll get the message eventually.
 

Dave Scarpa

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Yes, and Fox BD's are some of the Most Expensice on the Market. Their Steelbook SD version was at BB this week for $15, Yet you get a watered down Disk for more than twice the price.
 

RobertR

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If you explicitly TELL Fox WHY you're not purchasing their product, there is no "no-win" situation.
 

Jason_V

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Hence why I'm keeping my Five Star version of Independence Day. I'm particularly scared of what they're going to do to The Abyss. It may be non-anamorphic, but it's one beautiful two disc set.
 

Shaun

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This is one of the main reasons why I initially supported HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray. All the greedy (high-priced, double-dipping, features-lacking) studios seemed to lean towards Blu-Ray.

Now that Blu-Ray has won the war, hopefully things will start to improve and pricing will become more consumer-friendly.
 

Jari K

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Here we go again.. It has always been up to the studios, not formats. E.g. Warner has always been great to add extras (whether it´s SD DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray), so they (studios) make their own choices.

Since Blu-ray now has 50gb in use, you can fully blame the Fox and not the "format". I´ve no clue why Fox is dropping extras from many of their releases.. I doubt that any of us know the real reason (if there´s one in the first place).

They want to limit their HD-releases to "one disc"? (with 50gb in use, could this really be the reason?)

They want that their SD DVD-release "still sell"? (since some people buy those for the extras etc)

No idea..

But I agree. This doesn´t work. At least not with this price range (with Fox, I mean).
 

TonyD

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jari you should quote the entire post if you want to respond that way.

shaun did say ....
"All the greedy (high-priced, double-dipping, features-lacking) studios seemed to lean towards Blu-Ray."
 

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