I think this is the end is near for Blockbuster.
Not only are they bringing back late fees, which nobody likes, but they are raising the prices of old releases to 5$. Wow. I thought that they were circling the toilet before.
Mashing buttons since 1984
I’m not sure how that “brings it more in line with Red Box”. Red Box is $1 a day, period. Paying $5 up front to rent a movie I can probably purchase for close to that amount is madness.
It’s not just NetFlix and Red Box that are killing Blockbuster. Cheap DVD’s are killing them, and they can’t compete in the sales market. They had a great used game business going, but they seemed to have abandoned it. With Blockbuster pretty much getting rid of most videogames, I’ve had very little reason to go in there.
I also don’t rent movies anymore. I get them On-Demand. Cheaper than Blockbuster and no messing with going to the store or dealing with envelopes.
I hate to see Blockbuster go under, but their market is disappearing.
Blockbuster was either blind to the competition or refused to believe that they would ever find themselves in this position.
They once ruled the rental market, but they let Netflix, Gamefly and Redbox just walk in and take massive amounts of their market. Blockbuster was in an excellent position to start all of the services those three offer, but they stuck to their antiquated ways of doing business.
I never like to see a business go under (as it seems BB is headed that way), but I have never been a fan of that company. Even back when they were the only option for video and game rentals.
I’m with Jason – after their game inventory went down, I stopped going there for anything. If I had a coupon I’d think about it, but that didn’t happen very often.
Blockbuster had the one advantage: immediacy. They never exploited that with ample inventory. Their loss.