Anyone that talks to me at length knows I am not a big fan of Walmart. That being said, today when I heard they had signed a deal to sell movies online from all of the major studios I was not surprised. Considering the buying power they have, along with their track record on selling massive quantities of music a movie media it was a no brainer for the studio’s.
I read somewhere once that Walmart is the number one movie and music media seller in the United States.
Walmart has tried and failed in the past to get in the online media selling game, and I think they are going to fail big time here as well. One of the reason is from what the folks over at Business2.com point out.
“First of all, for portable video, it’s a disaster: Shows won’t play on Apple’s (AAPL) iPod, Sony’s (SNE) PSP, or Microsoft’s (MSFT) Zune. And while the site supports new Windows Vista PCs, it won’t work on a Mac or Linux machine.”
Even more shocking are the prices they are going to charge to down-load a Video, which will be nearly the same price as the boxed version. Who in their right mind is going to pay the same price for a down-loaded video as compared to picking it up in the store at the same price.
Either the studios are extorting a lot of money out of the deal requiring the high prices or some marketing director has totally lost his mind. Gizmodo
Have you been to the Walmart video site? IT looks like someone messed up the CSS. Not a good start. I too think it will be a failure.