Blockbuster Finally Catching Up To Redbox?
One has to wonder who in the heck actually bothers to visit a video store anymore. Honestly, the era of the video store largely died for me a few years ago. I am either doing Netflix, watching movies over the Roku with OneBox, or borrowing DVDs from friends. If I want to rent something, I am doing so from Redbox. The last place you will find me is at a Blockbuster store. Seriously, who is still using this?
Lucky for Blockbuster, it appears that it is finally coming out of the ’90s as its Netflix-like services are just not cutting it by themselves. No, there was clearly the need for some additional ideas to be at work. And hence, we now see Blockbuster taking on Redbox with something that could be seen as doing things the hard way.
Rather than providing something useful like a DVD or Blu-ray disc, Blockbuster is loading movies onto removable media such as SD cards. Yes, I am not kidding. Rather than seeing people purchasing or renting content on the iPhone with iTunes, this would allow other mobile phone users to rent movies.
Now for the reality check — who the hell is watching movies with their phones, much less using SD cards with them? A few years ago, sure. And yes, I might watch movies on my iPhone… but I am not entirely sure loading up content to a micro-media format is really the best approach here.
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One Comment
David Brown
November 17th, 2009
at 8:21pm
I have both Netflix and Blockbuster Total Access, but I still use the local store and here is why.
1. You can’t get HD easily delivered via the Internet. Even if you do it is the lower quality HD.
2. Not all content is available via the Internet. In fact, typically the content I want is not available from Netflix. Blockbuster online content is not free.
3. I can exchange my Blockbuster mail-order movies for free rentals. This is faster then getting the next one mailed. And I almost never have to pay.
5. I get two free game rentals or movie rentals (not needed) a month.
6. Redbox does not rent Blu-Ray.