| Written by Colin McFedran Published at 2008-11-30 19:43:35 Tagged: [Rumor] [PlayStation 3] [North America] |
Are Sony and Blockbuster looking to form an alliance to bring Blockbuster's
Sony and Blockbuster have some history together already. You may recall that Blockbuster was one of the first retailers in North America to decide that they were going to be supporting Blu-ray on a much bigger scale than HD DVD. That announcement really got the ball rolling in Blu-ray's favor at the time.
Now comes word from Blockbuster that, in the wake of their launch of Blockbuster OnDemand, they are actively seeking a partnership with Blu-ray player manufacturers. With Samsung and LG already in Netflix's corner, could this lead Blockbuster to seek out Sony as a BD player/game console entry into the market?
Unlike Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature, the Blockbuster on-demand service will be open to customers who do not subscribe to its DVD-by-mail service.
Blockbuster Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Keyes said,
"The service is essentially a rebranding and expansion of Blockbuster's Movielink.com Web site, which offers about 10,000 on-demand movies for download to personal computers. About 2,000 of those titles, such as recent DVD releases "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2" and "Get Smart", can be downloaded to TVs via Blockbuster OnDemand. Blockbuster also is pursuing deals to package the new service with Blu-ray players and is considering alliances with video game console makers, but is not ready to disclose the details."
Unless the Wii comes out with a HDD in the new year that can only mean they are thinking of the PS3.
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5 comments:
 |  Mike Hartnett
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436 @commentguy: Well, if Sony and Blockbuster were to join forces they might just come up wth something media server-wise. It's definitely possible...
 | Aaron Gagnier
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If for nothing else, Blockbuster is the best place to rent games for any of the console systems we could talk about. With their no-so-recent abolition of late fees, you can have a game for as long as you want and will only have to pay a $2 re-stocking fee.
The only "downside" is that their rental fee is probably higher than everyone else coming in at a little over $13 CAD when the tax is added. It's a small price to pay for basically owning the game without actually paying the full sticker price. I've had RockBand 2 for a little more than a month now and they have absolutely no problems with that...and quite frankly, neither do I since it's not rented under my name anyway, lol :-)
 | Dana Olson
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@Aaron Gagnier: Your account is charged the price of the game if you keep it longer than a week past the due date. If you have a credit card on file, it will be charged.
| Aaron Gagnier
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@Dana Olson: It's not my account that it was rented under, but they don't charge you the price of the game after a week...that would be ridiculous, lol. I doubt that our Blockbuster's are different than your's...but my buddy just returned a game that he had for 3 months and he only had to pay the $2.
I should've also mentioned that the second "downside" to the whole thing is that they won't let you rent anything else until you've returned what you have. That isn't really a downside for me though since I don't rent games ever anyway...but if my friend wants to rent again, I'll have to give him RB2 to return, which is no big deal if you ask me.
I love waiting several hours to watch a downloaded movies from Blockbuster as much as I need a hole in my head. Download video sucks ass. I'd never buy a download set top box. I want an instant streaming set top box from a service provider where I can get high definition 1080p blu-ray quality video on demand and live tv from one place over a low bandwidth connection (3Mbps or less) on both PC Player for PC and set top box for TV. Oh wait, it already exists, it's called MyTVPAL! and Netflix! ( WWW.MYTVPAL.COM ) / ( WWW.NETFLIX.COM ) Blockbuster is just trying to keep it's stock up until it dies! It has no flare innovation. Those who do not innovate do not survive. On demand means instant playing. So we should call it "wait several hours then never use the darn box again because your fed up of download boxes, just like AKIMBO". That's right! Just like Akimbo. Congratulations Blockbuster on once again missing the mark and sailing below our expectations. Long live 1080p blu-ray instant streaming on MTP and NF! Comment Guy