Blockbuster Video Kicking NetFlix In The Balls
 

Well, I was a long time Net Flix member, but after driving past my local Blockbuster and seeing that they now offer a new plan, "Movie Freedom Pass" for renting DVDs.

For $25 per month, you can rent out 2 dvds at a time and return them for others any time that you want without having to wait for them to come in the mail like Net Flix, thus in that, you could see MANY more movies for only $4 more per month.

Is anyone else in this program yet or know if there's any fine print on it that limits the movie rentals ?? I know that the "Game Freedom Pass" lets out 1 game and return it as often as you'd like which I'm in and I love it, so I'm thinking the movie freedom pass would be the same thing.

Gamefly puts them to shame, blockbuster doesnt have all the games so its useless.

Same with movies, I bet you wont have as large of selection of older movies on dvd.

Yeah, you have a good point there, HOWEVER if you can just stop off at a Blockbuster store and swap out your games/movies without waiting for them to go through the mail, you could watch/play a hell of a lot more of what they do have, ha ha ha.

I'm used to paying $4 for a movie, and we rent at least 3 per week :arcadefre
I guess we'll try this new thing :)

blockbuster doesnt have the huge selection netflix does

I switched to Netflix.. gave up video stores completely.. because the local chains couldn't care less about their horror catalogue. Also, they all seem to self-censor. Even if they have some sick indy flick (eg. the latest Toxic Avenger) or japanese import (eg. Ichi the Killer) they will be severely edited. I don't need to be protected from my own movie selections!

True, but I look at it this way. With NetFlix, when you get done watching a movie and pop it back in it's envelope and send it off, it usually takes a week before the next movie will get back to you, so if you watched all 3 of your movies INSTANTLY the day you got them in, you'd have the chance to rent up to 12-15 movies per month with the invoncenience of having to watch them as quick as you can to mail them back out.

With Blockbuster, if you watched one of those movies per day, that's 30 per month, if you watched 2 movies per day, that's 60 movies. If you had no life and watched the 2 then returned them in the same day and got 2 more, that's 120 movies per month.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a smaller selection and be able to see more movies, plus have the convenience of walking in and picking up another movie whenever I want.

I think that tomarrow I'm gonna dig into a Blockbuster Movie Freedom Pass and get rid of NetFlix.

Thanks for the info. I'd try it sometime! :thumbsup

Yeah, I saw it recently too...that's gotta hurt NetFlix's business...

You in Utah???

Netflix almost always gets movies to me like one day after I select it, two at the most. Only 2 at a time is too much of a pain in the ass I think...

Sounds great as I just gave up on Netflix. TRying to find decent new movies was looking a lot like work.

I think i will give the blockbuster thing a try now and see how it is, unfortunatly our block buster sucks

that has to be the most insane thing I have ever heard anyone say ....you have got to be fucking kidding me!

This probably depends on where you live . . I am in Eugene, Oregon (not a major metropolitan area) and it only takes about 2-3 days from when I mail a movie to when I get a new one. If I watch 1 a day, and mail it out the immediately after, I get a fresh movie every day. ~30 movies a month.

:2 cents:

man, with netflix i get movies the next day, if i mail it in on monday, i get a new one on wed. i dont see how teh blockbuster deal beats that.

also, last i checked, blockbuster owns netflix.

I like netflix alot, the only problem is the time it takes for the movies to get here.
You're lucky to get 3 a week total and that's if you watch them and put them back in the mail within a day of getting them.

The big thing is selection, if you like documentaries and older movies you can't beat netflix.
Plus I've been renting alot of TV series lately and some of those you can't get a blockbuster either.

It's less than $50 a month for both so that's probably what I'll do.
Use blockbuster to see new releases when they come out, so I don't have to wait forever, and use netflix for the all the stuff blockbuster doesn't have.

No, Oregon. very liberal here. It's hollywood/blockbuster.
They carry the american/rated versions of movies.
They don't tell you it's censored anywhere on the box;
most people probably don't even realize it is.
Movies like 'Dead Alive' (aka 'Braindead')

Did you just pull that out of your ass? When exactly did you check?
That is not even close to being true.

Director Jay Hoag and his Technology Crossover Ventures owns about 22% of the company and CEO Reed Hastings owns about 11%.
The rest is publicly traded on nasdaq "NFLX"


Idiot

wrong! i own it.

I think where a company like blockbuster or even wal-mart (who just got into this game) can really take control of the market is if a company like Blockbuster ALSO had a warehouse like netflix that you could order hard to find titles from.

You log onto the website, lookup your movie, and they'll tell you if its in stock at a store close to you or if it needs to be mailed.
The bonus is when you're done watching it you can return it to the closest store to you OR mail it back. That way you can get another title right away without having to wait on the mail.

The only thing netflix has over the video stores is selection, so this would put the video chain that does it into a dominant position.

:2 cents:

I just stay with NetFlix. That blockbuster deal sounds ok, but since they jacked their prices up to like $4 for 1 movie, I won't give them business anymore. There's a family owned video store in my city that gets like 3x the business as the blockbuster cuz their prices are reasonable.

I did the blockbuster Freedom Pass before I did netflix, but Netflix is WAY better.
First of all, netflix is cheaper, super fast, & i dont have to run down to the stupid store & fight traffic.l

Plus, blockbuster only has stupid mainstream movies. if you want anything good, you're out of luck

Blockbuster will be a thing of the past soon.

a week? takes a day to get there and a day to come back for me here in chicago.

Fuck Blockbuster. They only do something half-way nice when they are being threatened by antoher competitor. And $25 for 2 DVDs is too much! I love NetFlix and will be a loyal customer.

are you an idiot? find me one blockbuster that has 18k+ titles on dvd in one location and i will buy you a lifetimes worth of freedom passes for blockbuster

The local movie store down the street from me has that plan for $20 CDN, and they have about 2x the selection of blockbuster. :thumbsup

Topic: Blockbuster Video Kicking NetFlix In The Balls

Actually I think netflix has been kicking blockbuster in the balls, that's why they had to make a change in their business model.

Why else would they give up $4 per movie plus late fees if they weren't losing business to netflix?

The only catch is the membership is only good at that 1 store where you signed up! If you have several blockbusters in a decent radius, you couldn't use that same membership at each of them.