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Technology news and Jobs 
Fuzzy Logic Blockbuster to Blu-bust HD DVD off the shelves
Fuzzy Logic Blockbuster to Blu-bust HD DVD off the shelves | Blockbuster to Blu-bust HD DVD off the shelves |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 19 June 2007 | |
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From July onwards, Blockbuster will ensure that 1700 corporate-owned stores will stock more than 170 Blu-ray titles, with that number growing steadily as new titles are released onto the market. This is bad news for the HD DVD format, with the HD DVD forum decrying Blockbuster’s actions as not giving the format enough time, and not ‘listening’ enough to what consumers want. But the facts are that Blockbuster have the benefit of the figures, which must clearly be showing a greater demand for Blu-ray titles. Stores can’t afford to have lots of different formats taking up valuable in-store real estate. Already stores will have to offer two formats – DVD and Blu-ray. The weight of a third format with fewer movie titles was clearly too much for Blockbuster to continue bearing, and so the decision has been made. Matthew Smith, the senior veep of Merchandising for Blockbuster said in a statement that: "We intend to meet the demands of our customers and based on the trends we're seeing, we're expanding our Blu-ray inventory to ensure our stores reflect the right level of products”. Smith continued that: “While it is still too early to say which high-definition format will become the industry standard, we will continue to closely monitor customer rental patterns both at our stores and online, so we can adjust our inventory mix accordingly and ensure that Blockbuster is offering customers the most convenient access to the movies they want, in the format they want." But even though the tiniest of olive branches has still been extended in HD DVD’s direction, there will really have to be serious consumer demand and action for Blockbuster to change their Blu-ray decision. Smith finished by saying that: “We are excited to be able to make more high-definition titles available to our customers in those stores where our research indicates there will be the most demand. Obviously, when customers are ready we can expand the Blu-ray offering into more stores and add HD DVD to more locations if that's what customers tell us they want. We'll continue to work with the movie studios to ensure we have the right assortment of products." Well… Toshiba will have to do a lot of work now if HD DVD will truly survive and thrive as a movie format. HD DVD might still succeed in the computing space if the cost of blank discs can be lowered sufficiently quickly that both blank discs and HD DVD burners are markedly cheaper than their Blu-ray counterparts, but given how quickly prices fall these days for consumer electronics devices, if the price of HD DVD falls, Blu-ray will quickly fall too. After all, Sony has a lot riding on Blu-ray, and after all the pain and losses from the PS3, Sony can’t afford for Blu-ray to flop. If HD DVD makes a comeback now, it will be a miracle, but then in this world, possible is anything to misquote Nike. Despite this move we sadly still can’t definitively declare Blu-ray the true winner, but with the news that Blockbuster is going Blu-ray all the way, HD DVD is certainly looking more and more like an HD DUD. {moscomment}
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