Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Blockbuster has taken the step and begin offering, still as a beta only service movie downloads and movie rentals. This new service marks the integration of the Movielink service which they purchased just about one year ago.

Currently Blockbuster is offering around 5,000 movie and TV shows which can be either purchased or just rented. The movie pricing begins at $7.99 and the rental pricing starts at $1.99.

MORE »

Movie-rental chain giant Blockbuster announced recently that it was withdrawing its $1 billion bid for consumer electronics chain Circuit City. Blockbuster initially made the proposal on February 17, with due diligence and the announcement being made public last month on April 14.

Chief Executive James Keyes blamed “market conditions” for the demise of the proposed deal, once valued at more than $1.3 billion.

“Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster’s shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City,” Keyes said in a statement.

A combination of the two companies would have added up to an $18 billion business, according to Blockbuster’s calculations, but both companies have struggled in the past year. Circuit City posted losses amounting to $200 million at the end of 2008, and Blockbuster has been struggling against Netflix’s huge success in online video rentals.

Read [InfoWorld]

Blockbuster is about to launch a pilot test of its in-store kiosks for downloading movies into portable media devices. Sounds cool? Even cooler is the fact that downloading one movie would only take a customer two minutes. And we’re not talking here of short half an hour movies but movies for rent in all their full-length glory.

No less than Blockbuster’s Chairman and CEO James Keyes will be the one to demo the pilot kiosk during Blockbuster’s shareholder meeting. But don’t get too excited about this uber cool service yet folks, because the in-store kiosks only contain a few titles of movies, as Blockbuster is still negotiating with major studios regarding the possibility of including their movie titles into Blockbuster’s in-store kiosks database.

MORE »

As we previously reported, video rental giant Blockbuster has been looking to acquire electronics giant Circuit City. Blockbuster has already offered a whopping $1 billion, but reports are flying in, saying that they cannot fund such a hefty offer.

In an official statement from the company, Circuit City said:

“Circuit City awaits a viable financing structure that is predictably executable by Blockbuster given its current constraints of size and capital structure before it would be appropriate to allow further due diligence.”

While this may be just another attempt to stop the merger in its tracks, Blockbuster has no resistance to going hostile in the bid. More on this as it happens.

Via [Crave]

The courtship began in December with heady bids, chocolate kisses, and flowers. Blockbuster, the movie rental leader was set to hitch Circuit City to it’s star. Making its overtures public on Monday with an offering reportedly worth nearly 1 billion dollars. There were talks of crossing platforms with Circuit City renting movies and Blockbuster selling home electronics. And a day later there were talks that it would never happen. According to published reports, questions about how Blockbuster, a company valued at less then their initial offer to Circuit City would finance such a deal arose. My guess was late fees (I swear I returned that copy of A New Hope and I will fight those charges to the death!) but apparently the pot just didn’t have the gold. So in this post possible merger world how will these companies survive?

MORE »

Netflix has passed another milestone in the by-mail DVD rental business, they have passed the 100,000 movie mark. In addition Netflix now also has over 8,000 movies and TV shows available to watch instantly along with approximately 7.5 million customers.

Netflix has also surpassed rival Blockbuster who currently has just 80,000 movies available for their online service and at this point are only rumored to begin offering movies for immediate viewing. Maybe a merger with Circuit City could help Blockbuster pick up some needed strength.

Via [HackingNetflix]

Blockbuster is all set to acquire Circuit City, hoping it would become a very huge electronic gadget chain aside from being a global provider of movies and gaming entertainment.

Blockbuster is reportedly willing to bid over $1 billion, larger than the company’s current value in the stock market, to create a chain similar to the Apple Inc.’s stores. Combining the two companies together, a 9,300 store chain will be readily available to sell movies, games, and gadgets to the US. If and when the deal is finalized, Blockbuster movies and games for sale or rental will be carried by Circuit City stores nationwide while Blockbuster stores will also sell electronics and gadgets.

MORE »

Spring has arrived in the Eastern United States, and rumors are in the air. One of which is that Blockbuster is working on a Vudu like set top box to get movies out to consumers, without having them leave their homes.  As the story goes, Blockbuster will be working with Movielink, a company that Blockbuster purchased a while back, to provide the service. Movielink already has a similar service in place.

A spokesperson, for the brick and mortar grandpa of the movie game, stated that the company wants to push out movies through, “mail, through kiosks, through downloading, and through portable content-enabled devices.” With the last bit in mind, it seems Blockbuster is attempting to compete with the Apple TV and Vudu. My fanboy status aside, I find it hard to believe that a company which focuses on entertainment, can put out a quality hardware rivaling that of a computer consumer electronics company like Apple. Stay tuned to Gadgetell for more as it develops.

Read [SlashGear]

Netflix has been slowly eating away at Blockbuster’s market share since their entrance into the industry in 1998.  Now Blockbuster is trying to combat this by inviting Netflix customers into their bricks-and-mortar stores for a free movie rental.  I’m not sure ONE free movie rental would get me off the couch, but some of you movie buffs may be thinking to the contrary.  The freebie is on through December 21, and just requires Netflix users to bring in the address flaps from one of their rentals.

The promotion is obviously an attempt to get Netflix users better acquainted with Blockbuster’s similar Total Access service - which allows subscribers to return movies to the stores, or better yet, trade for a new one.  Blockbuster is starting to leverage their retail stores as they compete to stay alive.  One thing that’s for sure is that Blockbuster retail stores help you when you’re simply in the mood for a movie (and aren’t much of a planner).

John Antioco, the company’s CEO, stated the following:  “Many movie rental decisions are made within a few hours of the actual viewing experience, and Blockbuster Total Access is the only online rental service that can respond to spontaneous rental needs through a retail network as broad as the 5000 participating Blockbuster stores nationwide.”

Read [ArsTechnica] Via [Gizmodo]

For all of you early-adopters out there, we’ve got some exciting news.  Blockbuster has announced plans to stock store shelves with HD DVD and Blu-ray content for sale, and of course for rent. 

The national chain with over 250 stores has declared they will stock 40 titles for each of the popular high-def formats, and will rent them for the same price as regular DVDs.  It’s nice to see they’re not up-charging for the more expensive discs.  They likely made that decision because charging more would simply turn people away from the new technology.  If anything, they should be charging less since those getting the discs already forked out hundreds on their player.

Read [Pocket-lint]