DVD Releases and News

Wal-Mart to Launch Movie Downloads, Remove Double-Face

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh Wal-Mart?

Only a few months after they whined about the price Apple unveiled for digital movie downloads, Wal-Mart has announced a beta download service of their own, albeit a strange one.

Kicking off yesterday, customers were offered an exclusive DVD bundle of "Superman Returns" wherein they could purchase the physical disk and then buy additional movie formats for digital download, namely $1.97 for portable devices, $2.97 for PCs/laptops, and $3.97 for both portable players and PC/laptops.

“This unique 'Superman Returns' physical/digital DVD combination not only marks our first step into the video downloads market, but gives our customers the best of both worlds in movie entertainment,” said Kevin Swint, the divisional merchandise manager for digital media at Wal-Mart. “They have the DVD as a collectible and for viewing on their home theaters, plus the freedom to download and watch the movie on multiple devices, including portable media players, PCs and laptops. We believe that as we expand this offering to other movie titles, our customers will come to value this extra option as one of the benefits of buying a DVD at Wal-Mart.”

Nevermind that we could just use the DVD to rip the movie to whatever format we needed, but whatever. At least all the major players in the market are beginning to see the light on this movie download business. With Blockbuster recently announcing their interest in offering movie downloads in early 2007, and Time Warner unleashing download-to-burn in the new year as well, we may just be getting started on our wish for a media-less society. Goodbye Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the mockery was fun while it lasted.

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Posted by on November 29, 2006 10:51 PM
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