Walmart ups its commitment to Blu-ray
It appears that Walmart is about to commit itself even more fully to the Blu-ray format with a wider roll out of its ‘Blu-ray Experience Area’.
According to Video Business, Walmart has been testing in all-in-one Blu-ray area in some stores that brings high definition TVs, Blu-ray players and Blu-ray discs into one easy area for consumers to see how all of it works together.
As pricing has dropped on on the hardware side of the equation, Walmart has seen that its customer base is more willing to upgrade their home entertainment options. “We know that improving home entertainment has been an ongoing trend for households for some time,” Jeff Maas, senior category director for movies and entertainment, told Video Business. He went on to say, “Maybe due to spending more time at home to save money, maybe due to lowered prices on HDTV and Blu-ray. That opens up the option to more people.”
Is the extra Blu-ray push working for the retailer? It seems to be if what information that is available publicly is to be believed. Five Blu-ray titles were amongst Walmart.com’s bestsellers in December: Up, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Inglourious Basterds. Estimates also put Walmart pushing past Best Buy as the top retailer of the format, now capturing 30 percent of the over all market.
With the recent revelation that Blu-ray is actually tracking cheaper than DVD did at this same point in its life cycle, this seems like a fairly safe bet for the major retailer, but there is also the issue that Blu-ray may still end up as a niche product. While DVD was a quantum leap improvement over the video quality of video cassettes, the difference between DVD and Blu-ray is pretty negligible to the untrained eye, especially with upconverting DVD players becoming more prevalent. Even if someone buys a Blu-ray player, sales of high definition software isn’t assured to accompany it. The road for mass acceptance of Blu-ray still seems pretty far off.
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January 2nd, 2010
Nice write up, would be nice to see Blu-ray really hit the masses, and wal-mart support could really boost its chances. Reblogged and linked to you here http://www.jeffsguidetocheaptv.com/general/wal-mart-to-expand-support-for-blu-ray/
Thanks!