Redbox will begin adding Blu-ray titles to its 22,000 kiosks starting in the Q2 2010, says parent company Coinstar CEO Paul Davis.
So far, the company has been only testing Blu-ray releases in its kiosks.
“[Blu-ray] strengthens our position to meet consumer demand,” adds Davis, although he concedes that they will not cost $1.00 like DVD releases do. When asked about the price, he said they have not determined a price, but they will “for sure be higher than our standard DVDs.”
Result for: dvds
Despite Sony’s marketing team deciding to change the focus of the PS3 more to the console’s movie downloading and Blu-ray capabilities, it appears consumers are still purchasing the system mainly for gaming.
Last August, the NPD Group released a study that showed that about 37 percent of PS3 owners had never once watched a Blu-ray film on their system. The second edition of the study was released recently, and the number hardly changed, moving down to 34 percent.
NPD did note however that the number of PS3 owners watching Blu-ray was higher then PS2 owners watching DVDs at the same point in the console’s life cycle.
“It’s at a fairly high level, where it took years for PS2 owners to use [that console] for DVD,” NPD analyst Russ Crupnick added, via VB. “Most PS3 people think of it as a gaming device, but there is a reasonable level of awareness and intended use for Blu-ray.”
The new study gave the following figures to the question of why PS3 owners had purchased the console:
58 percent - Mostly to play games
34 percent - For games and movie, equally
8 percent - Mostly movies
NPD also noted that PS3 owners who have had their machines for a couple of years of more tend to buy more Blu-rays over standard definition DVDs and vice versa for newer owners.
“Newer owners are somewhat more oriented to DVD than Blu-ray,” Crupnick says. “The later you get into an adoption cycle, the more you’re not getting the super aficionado. These are people who are tougher to convince about the benefits of Blu-ray and who are sensitive to price.”
Result for: dvds
Mark Wattles, the former founder of Hollywood Video and current owner of Mark’s Video rental chains in Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona has announced across the board price drops on rentals via his stores.
Per night prices for rentals have been dropped to $1.49 USD for Blu-rays, $0.99 for new release DVDs and $0.49 for catalog films, prices that match or even undercut rental kiosk giant Redbox.
VideoBusiness has confirmed the new aggressive price drops.
Wattles currently owns 20 locations which were spun off from Hollywood Video when it was purchased by Movie Gallery.
