Digital downloads is a lucrative business, Apple knows this as do Microsoft and a bunch of other companies. Most already sell music to some extent and now they try to sell TV shows and movies, but without being able to attract the six major studios all at once.
It takes Wal-Mart to do that kind of thing. Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal are all represented in the upcoming digital download store made by HP and due any day now. Actually, the folks over at Gizmodo have already seen the store (closed now), and a New York Times article links it as well. Launch today perhaps?
It would seem that Wal-Mart are going for the DVD price tag, more or less, and launching the download side by side with the DVD. In other words, the download version isn’t the poor man’s DVD. There will be rebates for people who will buy both versions.
Read more over at the New York Times.
Oh, and by the way. Wal-Mart may be the first to actually bring the big six together, but more will follow of course. This is most likely a big leap in digital distribution, not for what Wal-Mart’s service will offer, but what it opens up in terms of availability and services that follows.
Originally posted on February 6, 2007 @ 2:44 am