Blockbuster selects Blu-ray HD disc for store rentals
Blockbuster said last week that it would rent only Blu-ray discs when it expands the HD section in 1450 retail stores next month. The decision means the rental giant will not expand its offerings of the rival HD-DVD discs, Blu-ray’s major competitor in a continuing format war.
Blockbuster’s choice was seen as a major setback for the HD-DVD format. The retailer said its decision was not an endorsement of Blu-ray, but rather a reaction to customer choice.
Blockbuster has been renting both Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles in 250 stores since late last year and said it found that consumers were choosing Blu-ray titles more than 70 percent of the time.
“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing,” Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbuster, told the Associated Press. Blockbuster said it will continue to rent HD-DVD titles for now in the original 250 locations and online.
The consumer choice was helped in large part due to the lopsided availability of titles in Blu-ray, Smith added. All major studios except one are releasing films in Blu-ray, with several, including Walt Disney, releasing exclusively in Blu-ray.
Only Universal Studios, which is owned by General Electric, exclusively supports HD-DVD. Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, and Paramount Pictures, owned by Viacom, release films in both formats.
The launch of Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console, which comes standard with a Blu-ray drive, also helped give the format momentum, Smith said.
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It’s not yet known whether Blockbuster’s decision will influence other retailers in their choice of which format to support. The incompatible formats have been in a format war for more than a year.