One more nail in the HD-DVD coffin. The other major electronics retailers will follow suit soon I would imagine. Hard to consider buying a non Xbox HD-DVD now that you'll be bombarded with blu-ray advertising.
Best Buy to recommend Blu-ray format
Decision gives Sony yet another victory in the battle with HD DVD
Reuters
updated 4:56 p.m. CT, Mon., Feb. 11, 2008
CHICAGO - Best Buy Co Inc., the largest U.S. consumer electronics chain, said on Monday it will recommend that consumers choose Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray high-definition video format.
The decision gives Sony yet another victory in the battle with Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD to be the high-definition DVD format of choice.
Earlier on Monday, online video rental company Netflix Inc. said it would exclusively stock Blu-ray DVDs after some of the world's biggest movie studios decided in favor of that format.
Best Buy said it believes consumers will benefit from the choice of one HD DVD format.
"Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products," Brian Dunn, Best Buy's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement.
Best Buy will prominently feature Blu-ray hardware and software beginning in March, but will also carry an assortment of HD DVD products for customers who want those, Best Buy said.
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23117412
Now I'm not trying to say that HD DVD is going to win, but anyone else think this is a complete non-story? It doesn't say they're dropping HD DVD, only that they're going to recommend Blu-Ray products. If you're already in there buying discs I'm not sure that matters...
The Netflix thing is MUCH worse news for HD DVD. Although there are many HD DVD supporters that subscribe to Netflix just to rent HD movies. I wonder how many customers they lose because of it (they've also reported that they've always rented more HD DVDs than Blu-Rays). Bad news for HD DVD.
What I want to know is, there are two studios who are contractually obligated to release exclusively in HD DVD format (and one more not under contract, but doing it anyway). Are retailers just going to decide not to stock any of their movies period?