Best Buy is officially getting out of the DVD game
Starting in 2024, Best Buy will no longer sell DVD or Blu-ray discs
Aux News Best Buy
It’s getting harder and harder to get your hands on actual, physical copies of film and television. The advent of streaming pushed video stores and rental companies out of business; Blockbuster is gone, and just last month Netflix shuttered the DVD service that put the company on the map. Big box stores like Target and Walmart (in addition to major online retailers like Amazon) are among the final places to purchase physical media. But as of next year, there’ll be one less place to cop a DVD, because Best Buy will no longer be selling them.
Best Buy confirmed to The A.V. Club that it would no longer sell DVDs, Blu-rays, and discs. “To state the obvious, the way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today than it was decades ago,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement. “Making this change gives us more space and opportunity to bring customers new and innovative tech for them to explore, discover and enjoy.”
Disc sales will continue in stores and online through the holiday season. (Video games, by the way, are exempt from this physical media exodus.) Starting in 2024, you’ll have to turn to the aforementioned big box stores for actual discs, or find one of the 29,000 Redbox DVD rental kiosks that remain in operation throughout the United States (per Variety).
According to Media Play News, Walmart is actually the largest retail seller of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, “with an estimated market share in excess of 45%.” Per the outlet, even Walmart has cut “floor space allocated to discs by about 20%,” but in August the company was reportedly in talks with Studio Distribution Services (SDS) to help “manage parts of its physical media business.” (SDS is a joint venture of NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery that provides “end to end packaged media distribution services including Sales, Trade and Retail Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain services,” per its website.)
In other words, DVDs aren’t dead just yet, but the Best Buy news is another sign of the format facing extinction. Film and television fans may want to grab copies of their faves while they can, because as we’ve seen over the last few years, a lot of media is disappearing from the streaming landscape without a trace.
49 Comments
…this doesn’t seem like the signpost in physical media’s death march you’re making it out to be; like, I buy Blu-rays more than I have in a decade or so (and I know a lot of people turning back to physical media as well, but it’s always online. The only reasons I go into Best Buy are video games and computer accessories.I think the more interesting question is what Best Buy is pivoting towards, if they’re drastically changing their business or just leaning harder into appliances and a/v equipment.
yeah the juice (physically shipping big amounts of small items like that to stores) might not be worth the squeeze (a $20’ish sale per unit) for best buy specifically, but that’s a different thing.it DOES mean that the distributors no longer have guaranteed bulk sales to best buy, who i’m sure bought a lot, which could be bad in a general sense for physical media, but not necessarily.but yeah i imagine most sales are people either buying them directly (a24, criterion) or online (amazon). everyone i know buy 2-4 4ks every time there’s a criterion sale.
I hope that physical media doesn’t die (hopefully there will be a market big enough to support boutique companies), but industry sales data shows that things aren’t looking good: https://www.degonline.org/portfolio_page/deg-q2-2023-digital-media-entertainment-report/The fact that it’s already difficult just to find a standalone 4K Blu-Ray player that supports all of the HDR and audio formats out there (even the top-tier Xbox does not support Dolby Vision playback for UHD discs) for less than half a grand is discouraging enough.
i think one of the biggest problems with physical media is exactly what you’re talking about – in the vhs era you just put the thing in the thing and it worked. now it’s more complicated and expensive than ever.i remember feeling like the writing was on the wall 15’ish years ago when people were expected to manually update the firmware on their blu-ray players. one of the reasons vinyl came back so prolifically is because it just works, AND they look nice on a shelf.the other problem is that the ‘vinyl’ of movies is going to the theatre, which is personally where more of my money to the movie industry goes.
I agree, collectors need to start buying multi-reel 35mm prints for the home.Genuinely, though, I do think physical media will retain some kind of indefinite existence for prestige / Criterion-style releases. Kurosawa and Kubrick and such, but also 4K or 8K versions of Dune or Fury Road or other “show off your home theater” movies.
This. I use an Xbox Series X to play UHD discs, and I have had multiple (brand new!) discs give me an error message when I try to play them. Sometimes I can Google a solution (for some reason, unplugging and plugging the HDMI cable works sometimes) but I own at least one disc that my Xbox refuses to play. Many of my discs came with digital copies that support Dolby Vision, but don’t include DV on the disc (which ends up being moot because again, the Xbox doesn’t support it for physical media playback).I know there are a lot of passionate supporters of physical media here, but yes, this kind of shit is absolutely off-putting to consumers. Streaming is already more than good enough for the vast majority of consumers, but between HDR format fragmentation and playback restrictions on physical media, it’s easy to see why people wouldn’t want to deal with the added hassle of a medium that is already inherently less convenient than streaming.
That’s probably an easy one: they looked at the turns and margins on physical media sales, at best it came up as below average in comparison to anything else on the floor, and given the topline part of the business has been shrinking for a decade there was no chance for a tailwind of the sector itself bailing it out. I’d bet that what it gets replaced with will just be whatever is already producing an above average return for the store.
Also would make sense why Walmart is the king of that and won’t be getting out anytime soon; making immense amounts of money on low margin businesses (partially by just crushing suppliers the way Amazon does) has been their game for decades. Getting a third party (SDS) to assume the capital investment required to stay in the business and move what’s a lower margin business off balance sheet to increase overall returns is also very Walmart-y.
Can’t stream your laundry or your milk and eggs.
From what I’ve see, the ever-shrinking floor space for DVD’s and Blu-rays has been increasingly taken over by boxes for very large TV’s.This change for movies really isn’t shocking as someone that remembers how much space Best Buy used to dedicate to CD’s and tapes in the 90’s, and now you’re more likely to find more classic albums on vinyl in a Best Buy than any physical media for modern music.
Yeah I don’t think that Best Buy is most people’s first stop for DVDs anyway, so it’s probably fine?
In addition to Redbox, local libraries remain a source for physical media if you only want to borrow it. Libraries remain a tremendous underutilized resource. As someone noted elsewhere, if public libraries didn’t already exist it would be impossible to get them started anymore.
The catch is they’re full of homeless people and junkies.
Not around me in south suburban Chicago. And even at that, you can request a title online, and do nothing more than walk in to pick it up of the requests shelf. I just picked up The History of Sketch Comedy this morning. Requested it online, spent less than a minute in the library.
Meh the one you’re replying to changed his account name from a more racist one in order to try to get away from his bans.
I think the people who think libraries are sketchy places are the same people who are terrified of taking public transit. And think cities are dangerous places.
Zero chance a scumbag conservative troll like you has ever been in a library. Or read a book for that matter. So you don’t have to worry about it, do you?
If that’s a deterrent for you, you’re missing out. (Putting aside the fact that libraries tend to be one of the few reliable public spaces that don’t shun people experiencing homelessness.) The library has so much information and resources available essentially for free.-Signed, a librarian
Eat shit and die
Buy physical media, people. Do not trust streaming services. If you like a piece of media, buy it to own.
Neurotic hoarder mentality.
Eat shit and die
disney has said they’re done producing them after gotg3, yeah? at least in north america?
“disney has said they’re done producing them after gotg3, yeah? at least in north america?”
*sigh*
No. Only Australia.
Only AustraliaThey even started releasing the Disney+ shows on physical.
The artists receive a lot more in royalties from a sale than streaming in most instances too.
Streaming is fickle; movie/show you like could be on a different platform every 3 months. And isn’t true that even if you buy a movie from Amazon or iTunes, they can still remove it because you don’t technically own it or something?
Out of curiosity, I just Googled “DVDs near me” and, wow. Aside from book stores and an FYE (!!!) there was nothing. Oddly, Walmarts and Best Buys were not flagged as options. More interestingly, Google maps has retained the ghost addresses of all the Blockbusters in my area (all of course labeled “Permanently closed”).
Oh thank god. No more steelbook editions for 40 bucks a pop I feel compelled to collect!
“You will own nothing and be happy.”
I don’t think Ida Auken was talking about cheap pieces of plastic when she said that.
Eat shit and die
Looking at the replies, I know this isn’t going to be a popular opinion but, between my own personal experience and news like this, yeah, physical media is dead. Not “dead dead”. It will remain but in very limited capacity for collectors and the super crazy paranoid types.Streaming services have giant libraries and, for those that prefer to own films, buying digital copies are incredibly cheap and far more convenient. I just moved into a medium sized apartment and realized that I had hundreds and hundreds of DVDs and Blu-Rays that were just taking space. Many I had digital copies, others were easily available through streaming, and others were extremely doubtful whether I was going to ever watch them again (despite being fond of the movie, why did I spend $20 for a Blu Ray of Night of the Comet?)
The eye-opening experience, though, was when I tried to get rid of them. Nobody wanted them. Friends and online no-buy groups didn’t want them (even parents didn’t want the Disney blu-rays) and the library took them but only to sell them in their Friend of the Library stores, not as stock to loan out. Fewer and fewer people have a blu-ray player and fewer still use it. That said, there will probably always be a need. There are things that I doubt will ever be available on digital (classic Chinese and Hong Kong stuff, in particular, seem to be locked up by rights issues or something) and the rush for studios to trawl their extensive libraries to put on streaming seems to be over (I was watching my DVD of Something Wicked This Way Comes and I was just amazed that Disney+ hasn’t put this up and featured it for October!)
ordering a specific VHS directly from the distributors used to cost like $120. it was only when they hit a certain volume that they could cut the price down to $20 apiece for consumers. i could see it heading back that direction, if you want it, you can get it, but it’ll cost you.
Reasons I still buy physical media:
Not at the whims of a streaming service or licensingBonus featuresCool box art?Can get it signed Can always give it to the library if it’s in good condition for others to enjoyReasons I opt for digital:
There’s no physical editionPhysical is for things I’ll rewatch, digital is for stuff I’m not sure if I’ll likeMy physical space is limited
I’m the same as you for reasons similar to what you list. For music I’m the guy who still buys CDs and rips them to my computer, and then my phone. My 100% preferred option is buying vinyl that comes with a digital download, but this isn’t as widespread as I would like. I do sometimes buy albums via iTunes, I see that as sort of a middle ground between streaming and physical since you own the download, and I have the actual files on your devices. I’m also with you on movies/tv shows. I will say that I often stream things I own physical copies of simply because I’m lazy and don’t feel like getting out the disc, but I like that I own that media to watch if it becomes unavailable at some point. One thing I’m a huge fan of is Seinfeld, and I love all of the special features on the DVDs. That said, it’s available in HD on streaming services, so I generally watch it that way these days. I doubt they will ever put it on blu-ray, but if they do I’ll be the first in line to buy it.
I’d probably do what you’re doing and buy vinyl with digital downloads, but I’ve never owned a record player.
I inherited a high-quality one along with a pretty nice receiver and a nice set of Bose bookshelf speakers from my grandpa about 15 years ago. If not for that I probably never would have either. My grandfather actually had pretty varied taste in music, so I also took some of his records that I enjoy as kind of a starter for my collection. Fifteen years ago the vinyl renaissance was kind of at its beginning, so I picked up a lot of good condition used records very cheap and built up my collection. I then went on hiatus for several years when my son (toddler at the time) broke the needed on the record player. As I mentioned it’s a high quality turntable, and a replacement needle cartridge was like $80, so I waited quite a few years before replacing it.
I hate that Seinfeld got the 16:9 treatment to “make it” widescreen for streaming. There aren’t as many visual gags as The Simpsons, but there have been instances where cropping on the top and bottom ruined a shot. It’s actually what led me to ripping the entire series and watching it on Plex for the convenience.I’m not turning my nose up at anyone who watches it on Netflix (or Hulu? It moved from one to the other) though. It gets the job done.
I agree on the aspect ratio/cropping issue. It’s annoying to me without a doubt, but not enough that I choose to watch it in SD. Ripping, plex and all of that is above my IT pay grade.
I’ll add that I buy physical when I care about sound quality / actually hearing dialogue.
That’s why I wish more Netflix originals were on physical media, I’m not a huge fan of how they mix their sound.
No surprises here.And no, physical media is not dead. It’s just dead at Best Buy. It’s been dead at Best Buy for a long time now. No one buys discs at Best Buy, and for good reason. I can’t even remember the last time I got something from them that WASN’T damaged.
(Video games, by the way, are exempt from this physical media exodus.)Given the dinky amount of space they have on the floor of my local Best Buy, they’re probably not far off. And I’m sure a bunch of video game discs still being sold are just a repository for a download code, in any case.Here’s hoping one of these years the chronically behind-the-times political machine here in the US gets around to enacting useful consumer protections for digital media consumers.
Wow, way to bury the lead: it turns out Best Buy is somehow still around.
1. As an old, I remember the days when Best Buy’s floor space was mostly CDs and DVDs. That seems absolutely archaic now and I guess that footprint will be used for more TVs and appliances? FWIW I also remember Best Buys having a car stereo section.2. With the way streaming works now, I can see physical media making a comeback (though really, it always had a place). Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon are still things, so getting physical media is certainly possible.3. I imagine studios have done the cost/benefit of producing DVDs/Blu-Rays, vs not producing them and licensing those films to streamers (and by extension, taking their chances with those who choose to voyage the seven seas). I imagine there will always be *a* market for physical media, the question is whether its still profitable.
I’m a fan of the YT channel Stop Skeletons from Fighting, and they did a vid on the Format Wars. Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD.
Blu-Ray was considered superior, but Microsoft threw a lot of weight behind HD-DVD. Then after HD-DVD was discontinued, Microsoft unveiled an exclusivity deal with Netflix to stream on XBox. There’s a possibility that they purposefully created confusion in the marketplace while they perfected streaming, which exploded in popularity afterward.
They also showed a statistic that Blu-Ray has never made it’s from research and manufacturing back. Even now, in 2023, store shelves are still filled with DVD’s.
One hand, I absolutely get the convenience of streaming. Other hand, considering streamers are just removing content, if you like something, get a copy of it ASAP. It might not always be there.
It’s really not that different from physical media. Retailers never carried every VHS/DVD/Blu-ray ever produced, and some titles weren’t manufactured in as many quantities as more popular titles. If you didn’t buy some titles when you had the chance, you were SOL.And ever since Netflix debuted streaming, titles have rotated in and out of availability based on licensing agreements. Hopefully the majority of people understand by now that that’s just how it works. The content that streamers just remove tend to be original shows and movies that didn’t get a physical release (which sucks!).
It could be AI
Had lots of VHS tapes when that was the thing. Got rid of them. Had lots of DVDs when they became a thing. Got rid of them. Never bought any Blu-Ray. Have shit-tonne of movies on a hard-drive. All good.