Blockbuster Picks Blu-Ray over HD DVD

James Joyner @ Gone Hollywood | Monday, June 18, 2007

Blockbuster has gone with Blu-ray over HD DVD.

Video rental giant Blockbuster will be making Blu-ray movies their only high-definition disk offering beginning next month, which could be a huge blow to the HD DVD format.

According to the Associated Press, Blockbuster will be offering Blu-ray movies in 1,450 stores. Blockbuster has previously been offering both high-definition formats in 250 stores across the U.S. and Canada, and found that consumers chose the Blu-ray formate 70% of the time. “The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” Matthew Smith, senior vice-president of merchandising at Blockbuster, told The Associated Press.

Smith says that the decision was mostly due to the fact that every major studios except Universal release thier movies on the Blu-ray format. Universal is the only company to solely back the HD DVD format. Warner has also released some titles such as the recent Matrix collectors set. “When you walk into a store and see all this product available in Blu-ray and there is less available on HD DVD, I think the consumer gets that,” Smith told AP.

Another factor in Blu-ray’s success has been the Playstation 3, which comes standard with a Blu-ray drive.
Although the Blu-ray addition to the PS3 has been a boon to Sony, it has also increased the system’s price driving many consumers away. According to a recent interview with Sony boss Howard Stringer, the company is looking for ways to cut the cost of the Playstation 3, to make it more accessible to its consumer base and hopefully drive sales toward the console.

While Blockbuster isn’t nearly as important as it was a few years ago, it’s still a dominant player. This may well be the decisive move in swaying the outcome of the high def DVD battle. Many of us are eager to upgrade our DVD players to match up with our televisions and satellite boxes but have been waiting out the market so as not to get stuck with an obsolete technology.

Blockbuster Picks Blu-Ray over HD DVD

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