Major Book Chains Cut Blu-ray Prices in Half (Briefly)

America’s two largest bookstore chains used October to offer some big discounts in Blu-ray Disc titles, although one chain (Borders) recently scaled down its in-store inventory of videodisc titles.

Barnes & Noble has been pushing a promotion that runs through Oct. 28 that offers both in-store and online customers 50 percent discounts on several Blu-ray titles.

Included are a lot of older movies and TV series, many of which didn’t exactly light up the box officer in their initial theater runs. While “Hoosiers” in on the list, so is “Dogma,” “Hart’s War,” “The Universe Season 1,” “Swordfish,” and “No Way Back,” among others.

The Barnes & Noble promotion also includes some typically more costly boxed sets of TV series and movies.

Borders, for its part, ran a more modest promotion--offering 50 percent discounts on a handful of Blu-ray titles late last week (Oct. 16-17). Borders’ promotion limited purchases to two Blu-ray titles per customer and was in-store only.