Blu-Ray Faces Another Competitor
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A matter of Competition
It seems as though after the death of the HD-DVD that Blu-Ray would definitely be the sole-proprietor of the next generation of media. No other media has made its way to knock Blu-Ray out, well, not any physical media that is. Netflix, a virtual service that allows you to rent DVDs and have them sent through mail, as well as more recently (and importantly) allows you to stream movie content.
Why is this so dangerous? Well, Netflix’s streaming services have been growing like crazy. There’s a load of new devices that will allow you to use your subscription right through the Internet and onto your television. So far, we’ve got Blu-Ray players streaming Netflix, the Xbox 360, even TiVo. Now, however, LG has announced (thanks to Engadget) that their latest HDTV will feature Netflix right inside of the TV! You won’t need any extra boxes, it’ll just be right in the TV.
Now, certainly this is dangerous for Blu-Ray and its rental. Netflix is so cheap, theres no possible way you couldn’t justify getting that over a new DVD. You can just rent it and watch it instantly right on your TV. As long as you have a Netflix account, you can watch it as much as you want.
Personally, I don’t remember when the last time I bought a DVD was. I have so many movie channels on the television already, Netflix would definitely drop the chances that I buy a DVD down to zero. Perhaps this is the reason why Blu-Ray is moving so slowly in comparison to how quickly the DVD replaced the VHS. The DVD is even 10 years old now, when will that be phased out? Not for a few more years. the VHS took about 2 years to die. We’re already on our first year with the Blu-Ray.
Though Blu-Ray looks fantastic, and Netflix requires a constant subscription to use their service, disk players are getting cheaper. A typical BD-ROM player will cost around $300, whereas it was around $400 before the start of holidays. This is a great outlook for Blu-Ray, but we’re not really sure how this Netflix thing is going to blow over for this technology. It seems more people would rather just stream the content straight through the Internet.
Who wins: Netflix, or Blu-Ray? What would you rather be spending money on?
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It’s more of an issue with Bandwidth. People still buy PC games because they can’t download a 6GB installer because of a bandwidth cap or a speed limitation. Same thing for movies, especially 25GB Blu-Ray movies.
Bandwidth is certainly an issue against Netflix, but they still have a lot of customers who don’t seem to be complaining. Theres more and more devices with the Netflix feature built in!
Blu-Ray is still more expensive, and you need to pay $25 for a movie. Whereas Netflix is still only $9/month and you watch as much as you want. I don’t know, but it definitely seems like they are in a great position to compete against Blu-Ray movies.