AfterDawn: News

Online DVD rental price war heating up

Online movie rental war in the United States is heating up between the world's largest movie rental chain Blockbuster and the number one online movie rental service, Netflix. The race has been in the works for years now, but the last few months have been interesting, as both companies have discounted heavily their subscription prices.

Latest move was made by Blockbuster, who announced today that it will cut its cheapest monthly subscription price by $2.50 to $14.99 a month (€11.20) and guarantees the price until January, 2006. However, this time Netflix is not going to follow the suit; it announced quickly after Blockbuster's price cut that it will maintain its current pricing for all of its subscription services.



But Netflix's chief executive pointed out how desperate Blockbuster must feel right now and how committed they are to online rentals, as they seem to be prepared to sacrifice their traditional video store business in order to fight off the competition from Netflix, Wal-Mart and others. "In my view, Blockbuster just killed the video store by offering $15 pricing for online, but maintaining $25 a month for store-based subscriptions," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said. "They are telling their customers to go online."

Netflix's cheapest monthly subscription currently costs $17.99.

Source: Reuters

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 22 Dec 2004 14:16

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• 7 comments

• btitus

  The Blockbuster offer makes it a lot easier for those who wish to increase their dvd "back-up" collection. There does not appear to be a limit to the amount of movies that you can place in your Queue (the list of movies that you would like to have sent and in which order). They have a lot of distribution centers that allow them to get your dvd to you alot quicker. The longest I've ever waited is three days. Also, they provide two free in-store movie or game rentals each month. In addition to this, they provide coupons for other items in the store such as refreshments. I'm not a Blockbuster "fanboy" but this is a good deal.

  25.12.2004 15:28 #1

• djscoop

  No way. Netflix is way better than blockbuster. There's no limit to your que, and its cheaper. I just wish they would have games to. I will never EVER support an evil monopoly company like blockbuster!

  26.12.2004 10:47 #2

• btitus

  Obviously this is a case of "to each his own." I have tried Netflix in the past and was satisfied but I like being able to get the free movie or game rentals each month. Netflix had the on-line rental "monopoly" for a minute but now there is healthy competition. That makes it ideal for the consumer because the prices, selections, etc. get better.

  26.12.2004 14:20 #3

• vurbal

  I won't argue that Blockbuster is a company that deserves any great praise, I could say the same about Netflix. I tried out their service, and while it was okay I find their claim of "unlimited DVD rentals" laughable at best. On their 3 DVDs out at a time plan the maximum number I could get per week was 3. If there was any kind of holiday in the middle I was likely to get no more than 1 or 2. Plus they clearly didn't do anything on Saturdays which tells me they weren't even sending movies as often as they could have.
  
  I also find their statement about Blockbuster killing the walk in movie rental business laughable. I believe if you have one of Blockbuster's in-store plans you can rent movies just as fast as you can return them. In other words if I want to rent a movie and take it back the same day I can do that. Of course the selection isn't as good (which doesn't matter to a lot of people), but on the other hand you don't have to pick out movies on the internet (which a lot of people don't want to do).
  
  Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Netflix is around and doing well. I just don't think consumers are any better off with them at the top than they would be with anybody else. It's competition that benefits the consumer, not the goodwill of the companies they do business with. Almost without exception any company you do business with would be more than happy to take all your money and give you as little as possible in return if they could.

  26.12.2004 20:07 #4

• btitus

  There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to ordering from the internet as opposed to going to your local store. One thing that I like about using the internet service is being able to go through the DVD catalog and placing titles in my queue that I would like to see. When I go into the store and see a movie that I want to possibly rent later I might not be able to remember it the next time I go the store. Placing the titles into a file on my Palm pilot worked sometimes but if I had not remembered to bring it with me into the store...oh well. Placing the titles into the queue is so much quicker and much more organized. If I decide that I want to swap the order of the movies I can do so quickly. The extra incentive that I like about Blockbuster is the "free" rentals of either games or movies twice per month. That gets me into the store and while I'm there I might run across a title that I have further down on my list but will decide to go ahead and get it. As well, I might decide to actually purchase a title that I find at a discounted price in the store.

  27.12.2004 02:23 #5

• lavanay

  [Banned for spamming adverts]

  15.8.2006 02:35 #6

• dvo007us

  Guys, DVD rental is out fashioned now. Now everone is going for movie download or streaming videos. Such websites are cheap and the delivery is instant. I personally like downloading it directly from web.
  
  Dvo007us
  http://3itechnology.tk

  2.10.2006 23:15 #7