According to The Wall Street Journal retail giant Amazon.com may challenge the Netflix streaming product with a service of their own. Apparently the company has been in talks with NBC, Time Warner, News Corp. and Viacom to get content distribution rights to TV shows and film titles. If things fall into place, Amazon hopes to get the service launched this holiday season. Full Story
The company may launch a competing streaming video rental service through YouTube property.
According to the Financial Times, Google is in talks with Hollywood to launch a streaming video-on-demand service. The service would put Google in competition with video services from Netflix, Apple and Hulu, offering titles the same day as DVD releases. The Google video-rental initiative would be launched off YouTube, and apparently developers are thinking global. Full Story
Blockbuster is now renting out over 3,000 video game titles by mail for PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii consoles. The move positions them to compete with video game rental company Gamefly, and gives them an advantage over competing rent-by-mail company Netflix (who doesn’t offer video games), and kiosk movie rental company Redbox (who offers video game rentals for $2 a night but in limited locations). Full Story
It’s hard to believe the company that opened thousands of stores nationwide and lead the movie rental business soon after launching in 1985 could possibly go belly up. But video-on-demand, kiosks, and movies-by-mail may have toppled the giant. Full Story
The newest Blu-ray Disc players from Philips will feature Blockbuster On Demand support, allowing streaming movie purchases without having to go to a rental store. The Philips 5320 and 7320 Blu-ray player models have supposedly added support for the service. However, good luck finding one of the BD models to purchase. We checked the Best Buy, Radio Shack and Amazon stocks but came up short. Here’s a link to the BDP7320 on the manufacturer’s website. Full Story
Big box retailer Best Buy doesn’t plan on watching Apple and Amazon dominate the online movie sales business, or sit back waiting for Walmart’s Vudu service to take off. The company will begin selling movies via internet this month through CinemaNow, an online distribution service acquired by Sonic Solutions in 2008.
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Blockbuster says Sherlock Holmes topped their Blu-ray rentals for the week ending April 4, followed by The Blind Side and Brothers at second and third. Downloaded rental titles via Blockbuster On Demand were also lead by Sherlock Holmes, with The Blind Side and 2012 trailing in second and third. Full Story
Blockbuster has made new deals with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to provide customers with day-and-date titles from stores or by mail. Last month Blockbuster also renewed an agreement with Warner Bros. to provide new titles immediately to customers. Full Story
Blockbuster has renewed a previous agreement with Warner Bros. to offer new titles immediately for rental by mail or in-store. Movies include today’s release of The Blind Side and next Tuesday’s (Mar. 30) release of Sherlock Holmes. The renewal continues a 25-year relationship between the two companies. The existing digital agreement will stay in-tact. Full Story
Why is Netflix winning the movie rental race? We looked at base plans for both Blockbuster and Netflix — one a brick and mortar movie rental giant with a few thousand stores and kiosks opening nationwide, and the other a movie-by-mail enterprise which has taken the market by storm. First let’s look at what they are offering. Full Story
A first for Blockbuster, the HTC HD2 mobile phone from T-Mobile will provide subs with over 100,000 movies, TV shows and games from their mobile On Demand library. The HTC HD2 has a large 4.3 inch touch display and operates at 1 GHz – making it the largest and fastest touchscreen smartphone in the U.S. (according to T-Mobile). Full Story
Could Star Trek be “The Biggest” Blu-ray/DVD release of the year? You might think so with all the hype about the film’s disc release tomorrow. We haven’t seen this kind of hype for an entertainment product since, well, last week’s Call of Duty release. Well you can get your Star Trek Blu-ray Disc before anyone else by hanging out at Blockbuster tonight when the clock strikes midnight. Full Story
Blockbuster and Samsung have made an agreement to deliver Blockbuster OnDemand services to Samsung HDTVs, home theater systems and Blu-ray players. The services will be available this Fall, and the agreement gives Blockbuster top positioning on Samsung’s Blu-ray player interfaces. Full Story
Starting soon, kiosks will be set up in Blockbuster stores across Canada. The company first offered Blu-ray discs to customers in November of last year, but now they will promote the high definition format even more by allowing customers to actually “see” the goods. Full Story
- Limited Time
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