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Nov 4 / Ozymandias

Fun with Blockbuster

,

Just a quick note on something I found scary amusing yesterday. Had some friends over for dinner, and swung by Blockbuster to pick up a couple of movies. I'm generally a Netflix sort of guy, but just didn't have anything in the house. Anyway, while there I made the mistake of asking whether they'd be carrying HD-DVDs for rental. The conversation went something like this:

Clerk: "Do you want to sign up for our new Blockbuster online promotion that I'm mandated to ask everyone who comes in the store about?"

Me: "No thank you."

Clerk: "Why not? It's great! Here are exciting details!"

Me: "No thanks… I'm happy with Netflix. They carry HD-DVD, you don't."

Clerk: "Oh, well, we'll be getting HD-DVD in a week or so for rental… sign up! It's great!"

Me: "No thanks. But do you know whether you'll be selling HD-DVDs as well?"

Clerk turns to Manager: "Will we sell HD-DVDs?"

Manager: "Yes, we'll be getting BluRay in to sell at the same time as we rent them."

Me: "Hang on – not BluRay, HD-DVD."

Manager: "Oh, are they different? You know better than us I guess!" (And I kid you not, she giggled.)

Me (nice and polite): "Yes, they are quite different and one won't work in the other player – you guys might want to get the details as you're probably going to have a bunch of people looking for both formats in the future."

Moral of the story – just one more brick in the wall as to why I hate Blockbuster. But I did find it interesting that Blockbuster corporate appears to have decided to support only BluRay. Not a criticism – from their perspective it's a really tough call to make, and I'm sure the upfront cost of buying units to both rent and sell is significant. They probably had to pick one or the other – we'll see whether they made the right choice.

As for me, it's just one more reason I'm sticking with Netflix for now… they made the smart choice and have both HD-DVD and BluRay for rental. Nope, I'm not shilling for them – and you won't find a magical "sign up here" referral link on my website. Consider it a friendly recommendation from a happy customer – that's all.

Oh, probably worth noting that I'm traveling to Asia on business for the next three weeks, so posts will probably be somewhat intermittent. On the other hand, both the PS3 and Wii will be shipping, so I suspect I'll have something to say. Smile

Related posts:

  1. [Edit] Time to Pick Up that HD-DVD Drive
  2. Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD Direct Comparisons
  3. Joe Kane on Blu-ray Image Quality
  4. HD-DVD AACS Copy Protection Cracked?

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  • Wassah!

    Yeah, Blockbuster is retarded at times. I’ll probably be getting Netflix soon anyways…

  • Buddylee

    Blockbuster offers both hd-dvd and blu-ray.  Also Blockbuster now offers the choice of returning the movies to a store or shipping them back.  If you return them to the store they will be take out of your queue right then.  Also if you want to take the movie they shipped to you to the store and trade if for a movie there that’s also free.  I don’t know why you dislike them so much when they have a lot more to offer then Netfix in my opinion.

    Here is the link. I just put on in my queue so it works.

    http://beta.blockbuster.com/online/content/page/landing/hdLandingPage.jsp

  • zs450

    This is funny. In my area (Waldorf, MD) they also do not carry Xbox 360 games. They will have PS3 games, but, no Xbox 360. The closest store that I can go to rent games, if I wanted to do so, would be 15 miles away.

    I dropped Blockbuster online for this reason and changed over to Gamez-n-Flix.

    I don’t know if the corporate office should be involved or if they even care, but, the franchises are definately not inspiring confidence in many of us.

  • Anonymous

    RE: "Blockbuster offers both hd-dvd and blu-ray.  Also Blockbuster now offers the choice of returning the movies to a store or shipping them back.  If you return them to the store they will be take out of your queue right then.  Also if you want to take the movie they shipped to you to the store and trade if for a movie there that’s also free.  I don’t know why you dislike them so much when they have a lot more to offer then Netfix in my opinion."

    Sounds like the Blockbuster.com site is doing both, then? Really makes me wonder why the retail stores would only carry one… perhaps the clerks were misinformed?

    As to not being a Blockbuster fan, it comes down to a combination of bad service issues in the past and blockheaded decisions that just grated on me. Such as when they tried to not carry widescreen DVDs and only have pan and scan. Your mileage may vary. :)

  • ExTester

    Yea Blockbuster.com does both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.. As for the games, I was told that they get carry games based on demand. There is one Blockbuster in my area that hardly has anygames, mainly cause its in an area where a lot of old people live. Hence low VG rentals. Not sure if this is the same with the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray situation. But as it stands right now HD-DVD is selling much better than Blu-Ray is..

    http://www.thedvdwars.com

  • Anonymous

    Weird they changed the link the day I posted it.

    Here is the new one.

    http://www.blockbuster.com/online/content/page/landing/hdLandingPage.jsp

  • Scott

    Yes, Blockbuster.com does indeed carry both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.  I’m not even sure why you bothered to ask a Blockbuster retail clerk about it.  No insult meant to the intelligent people that work at Blockbuster retail stores but they are few and far between.  

    I only go in there to for free game rentals as part of my grandfathered Blockbuster Online plan and the clerks still annoy me.  Every time I pick up a game for the 360 that is also out on the original Xbox, they give me the original Xbox game.

  • http://journal.pdsys.org Nicholas

    Blockbuster was my first "real" job. Most of my coworkers didn’t know anything about movies, and were just working there because they needed a job. So they’d all direct people to me, when asking "what’s that movie with so and so, and this stuff happens.."

    So it’s understandable and within reason to think that most Blockbuster employees don’t really keep up on the latest and greatest, are in high school, or just don’t care (and want to get paid.)

    Yay.

  • Garulon

    This is a bit picky I know, but it’s "HD DVD" not "HD-DVD"

  • IceRatX

    Its a long loop but Blockbuster is owned by Viacom- Viacom just completed purchase of a major online gaming service this year…you guessed it Xfire.  So they have a good reason to be interested in Blu-Ray/Ps3 success…  Both are carried now, but that could change.

  • KrackerWP

    Viacom divested itself of Blockbuster in 2004, the clerk was simply misinformed as to which format, if any, will be supported at a store level. Just as with any new format, it will take some time for any rental chain to consider that format a viable option. Early adopters will just have to stick with the online programs(blockbuster and netflix both offer both hd formats) until enough players have been sold.

  • http://www.cheapassgamer.com CheapyD

    If you are coming to Tokyo, look me up:

    cheapyd at cheapassgamer.com