Blockbuster DVD kiosks creeping into New England supermarkets
By Richard Lawler 
posted Aug 28th 2009 10:52AM
posted Aug 28th 2009 10:52AM
Look out Redbox, Blockbuster is coming. The rental giant is expanding its test program with NCR, planning to deploy kiosks in all 57 Big Y locations in Massachussetts and Connecticut by September 3, with a familiar $1 per night pricing scheme. No word on any Blu-ray discs being tucked into these automated movie towers, and while 57 locations is hardly on the level of Redbox's thousands of self service locations, we wonder if this is just the beginning of a push to the "10,000 kiosks installed within 18 months" goal stated by NCR CEO Bill Nuti a year ago, but we suppose we'll know they're big time when the movie studios start suing.
Hey, they ripped off Netflix's business model, so why not Redbox?
Must be a very localized chain because I live outside of Boston and have never heard of "Big Y". Must be in Springfield area. I would hardly say "throughout Mass" as the press release says.
Western Mass and CT
Blockbuster you will crash and burn in hell for all you late-fee related sins.
Anyone who still goes to Blockbuster is a Git.
Isn't this going to piss off Fox and Universal? I thought Blockbuster and the movie studios was tite, yo?
Interesting that Blockbuster is using the same pricing scheme that Fox states undervalues their products. Unless of course we see a $3 option for new releases with shared revenue going to the studios as WB is now asking. We'll see if Blockbuster gets sued as well.
The reason why Fox & Co are complaining that the $1 overnight rental fee undervalues their products is because the studios want to push into digital rentals. And if you can rent an original uncompressed DVD including special features for a dollar then what do you think the corresponding digital rental cost be with compression, DRM, and no features?
It's a race to the bottom just like hardware has been for years only now it's catching up to software and the studios are not happy with that prospect.
The movie studios didn't sue Redbox. Redbox sued the movie studios. Get it right.
I've got MovieCube.net kiosks in my local (Bellevue WA) QFC and Fred Meyer stores. They use machines that look very similar to the one pictured above, with the horizontal slot below the screen.
I've seen the redbox units in Boise when visiting my parents, but not around here.
No one is going to miss them when they are gone
The Publix by my house has had one for over a month and there's a blockbuster in the same shopping center
My Publix has one.
Just saw one of the boxes last week at Publix in Jacksonville FL. You can't really tell from the picture above but the top of the kiosk is a large LCD screen showing previews - presumably of what the kiosk can rent.