Blockbuster has been on an uphill climb for quite some time now as they try to figure out how to morph themselves into a company that can compete with Netflix. The brick & mortar thing just doesn’t work anymore when people have the opportunity to download movies, or receive them in the mail. Blockbuster got right into the movie mail service, but up until recently, they were still lacking with the option for users to just download movies, something they could easily do with competitors. Aiming to compete with Netflix, Blockbuster has acquired Movielink, a movie download service. Will this help them in their uphill climb?
It’s been interesting to read opinions around the Internet regarding this acquisition and whether or not it will help Blockbuster in the long run. TechCrunch’s title is enough to give us an idea how Michael Arrington feels: “Blockbuster Desperate To Do Something, Buys A Loser.” Arrington explains how Movielink came about and says “Movielink has a very deep library of movies, but they are DRM’d to the hilt and the studios force them to price downloads at higher-than-dvd prices.” If that’s the case, and DVDs won’t be priced competitively, I’d have to agree that this wasn’t a wise purchase.
Blockbuster has been a few steps behind their competitors for the last several years now, and it almost seems that this is their last-ditch effort to keep their heads above the water. Blockbuster’s CEO and chairman Jim Keys said, “Our acquisition of Movielink, with its associated digital content, is the next logical step in our planned transformation of Blockbuster.” At least they have a plan and appear to be pointed in the right direction, but hopefully it’s not too late.
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Let’s remember that Blockbuster has over 2 million subscribers to it’s online server and growing. They may not be posting a profit yet this year but it’s only because they pumped hundreds-of-million-of-dollars into their infrastructure. Those investments will start to payoff soon and they’ll be back in the black.
Long story short: Blockbuster isn’t going any where anytime soon.
FYI, I been a Netflix subscriber for over a year and love the service. I tried Blockbuster in the past and hated it.
Ashley - I knew the war between Netflix and Blockbuster was on and always gave the edge to Netflix as I’ve tried both and prefered the former. We can only surmise that Blockbuster’s purchase, as you pointed out, of Movielink just might be the life-saver they were looking for - on the other hand it just might end up being cement shoes.
Blockbuster’s service was always appealing to me because they offered the in-store rentals, but the problem is that I don’t have a store of theirs nearby. I’ve never used either service before…the only two I’ve used are Intelliflix and Walmart, but wasn’t very impressed with either of them.
Cement shoes is definitely one way to look at it! I am hoping that Movielink will be enough to keep them afloat.