Studios May Force DVD Sales Only Period

Responding to continued drops in DVD sales, movie studios are apparently considering a multi-week window where DVD and Blu-ray copies would only be available for purchase. After that time was up the movies would then be available for rental.

Are people passing on buying DVDs because they can just rent them? Or is it because the movies aren’t worth buying or the prices are too high? The studios seem to think that the drop in sales can be attributed to outlets like Netflix and Redbox.

Personally I think it is a combination of the two factors but more so that people don’t want to spend upwards of $30 on a movie they are only going to watch once. It is certainly much easier and cheaper to rent these days which makes that a relevant concern. Despite that the movies that are worthy of adding to a home library and the blockbusters still sell relatively well. Paramount can’t complain about the 7.5 million DVD and 1.2 million Blu-ray copies of Transformers 2 that were sold in the first week of release.

At first I was upset hearing about this potential sales-only window but then I realized it wouldn’t feel so much as missing out on the movie during that time but more like it wasn’t actually releasing until that later date. One thing is for sure though. Doing this won’t result in me buying movies I wouldn’t have otherwise. It just means I’ll be waiting longer to rent them.