Wal-Mart Quits Movie Download Service
12.28.07 - 04:13pm
Just on the heels of Apple’s announcement that it will be renting downloadable movies though iTunes comes the closure of WalMart’s highly touted DVD movie download buying service.
Wal-Mart only opened its video download store 11 short months ago and has already called it quits due to less than expected performance. Wal-Mart was the first to have movie contracts with all the major studios, something Apple had been trying to due but was unable to pull off due to Apple’s insistence on offering the movies for $9.99. Wal-mart offered the movies for $12.88 to $19.88, but was not able to sell them at the higher price. After all why buy a movie to download that you can only play on one computer when you can buy the DVD for the same price or just a couple dollars more and play it anywhere, anytime? Apple in spite of not having all the new movies was still able to stay ahead with their $9.99 price tag.
Currently only one percent of movies are purchased online, with an expected growth to ten percent over the next 10 years. Like the music downloads it is still a highly experimental and tenuous market. Ripe for the picking for whomever can discern the right moves, a certain death for whoever doesn’t.
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