Blockbuster is firing on all cylinders in an attempt to bring movies into your living room every possible way. The company is so eager to please that its backing all movie delivery strategies — even conflicting ones. Its latest effort? A Blockbuster-branded set-top box that downloads movies over the Internet and plays them on your television, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
AppleTV already does this, and Netflix and TiVo are beginning to, but
that won't stop Blockbuster from trying by using the 6,000 movie title
catalog it acquired when it bought Movielink in August. At the same
time as it works the downloads angle, Blockbuster is trying to pump up
its stores with Blu-ray. Though the company announced long ago its
support of the Blu-ray format, Blockbuster said Thursday that all
stores would have the discs available, and that there will be more
Blu-ray kiosks demonstrating PS3s and HDTVs. The company's mail order
service, which struggles to compete with Netflix, will now offer an
option for subscribers to set a preference to only receive Blu-ray
discs (something Netflix has been doing for a while).
At this point, all three of Blockbuster's major strategies are
struggling. Perhaps it would make more sense for the company to pick
one horse and back it, rather than spending loads of cash investing in
every movie delivery method. —Rachel Rosmarin
