Where is Wal-Mart ? (1 Viewer)

[BrettB]

Have they entered the next-gen market yet? I've yet to see more than 2-3 hd titles in a store. Last night they had 1 Nacho Libre BD.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

All I ever see in Wal*Mart is software and the odd PS3. I don't think we'll see anything in the way of hardware until the 3rd party decks start coming out.

 

[Tim Glover]

Yeah, looks like the software is only available online....:frowning:

 

[Neil Joseph]

What?

All of the walmarts in our area (Toronto) have at least 30-70 BR titles and 30-60 HD-DVD titles, the superstore having a bigger collection. They have no hardware, other than the PS3 that is. Last I checked today, they had about 10-15 60 Gig PS3's there.

 

[Tim Glover]

Pretty cool Neil. There are 3 WalMarts near me and none have any titles. There is one BD Ice Age in a bin just below a PS3 model and that's it! :frowning: Whenever I ask someone about HD DVD or BD, they always look at me funny and say we only have what we got out there.

 

[BrettB]

I'm in the OKC metro area. I've been in several of the larger Wal-marts and none of them have squat.

 

[Dave Moritz]

The super walmart here in Phoenix off happy valley has both hd-dvd and blu-ray. And even have a blu-ray display hooked up which I think is very rare for walmart.

 

[BrettGallman]

Two out of five Wal-Marts in my area carry HD software, but they don't always seem to receive stuff consistently. For example, The Descent on BD didn't hit until about a week after its release.

 

[Harpozep]

I guess the Wal Mart retail outlets are clueless for now. When and if HD optical discs become something other than a niche product, they will climb on board and make the stuff fairly valueless just like they did for DVD.

We just have to wait for third party combo players at $100.00 then Joe six pack and Wal Mart will take notice.
Till then, we are a niche, heck even HD broadcasting is a niche, with SD content ruling on networks for all but a few hours a day. Things are still moving slowly ...

 

[Brian Sheffield]

Just after Christmas I had a conversation with the local Walmart store manager about Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

He told me that the high-def formats were being test marketed in a few stores, but Walmart had not decided to make the discs available in all stores as of this time.

No decision is expected until after the first quarter numbers come in. Even then, it's more likely the discs will appear in major markets first.

 

[Dave Moritz]

My roommate was just placed as the manager over electronics at the supercenter here. And since he did not know anything about HD I ended up giving him a crash course. Because we all know Walmart does not train anyone to know much of anything in that department.

So after some recomendations, he start implementing them just after actually moving into that department. The HD discs where mixed in with the dvd's and after moving them to an end cap by themselves, sales of HD titles actually went up. And he took a Phillips Blu-ray player and a 42" HDTV and created a HD display including movies that you could buy on Blu-ray. Just after creating that display they had a walk through and the individual that did the walk through was very impressed with the display. Lets see if that somehow gets duplicated in other Walmarts by summer time.

 

[Shane Martin]

None in Tulsa. Not that I expect most Walmart shoppers to be buying HD titles..

 

[LarryH]

They initially carried a decent selection in our local supercenters, but the restocking has been totally pathetic. Doesn't seem to be a good test if they aren't keeping up the supply.

 

[Chris S]

Appears to be a niche distribution. There are some stores in my area (DFW) that have HD media and others that do not. I would say the areas that tend to be considered the wealthier areas carry discs while the others do not.

 

[BrettGallman]

Restocking has been random at best at my local stores. They'll go weeks at a time with few new titles (or few titles at all), and then suddenly there's a huge restock. I've only bought two discs from Wal-Mart, I believe, so it's not really that big a deal I guess.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I'm looking for reasons NOT to shop at Wal*Mart, so lack of HD DVD/BD hardware works for me.