Wal*Mart will surely decide this war!

[LynxFX]

I just went to a couple of our largest Walmarts looking for Blu-ray and HD DVD to see how they were doing with getting joesixpack into HDM. What I found is very telling about how much they are going to decide this format war for us.

Walmart Supercenter:

Their Blu-ray and HD DVD selection:


That's right, 4 titles. 1 HD DVD, 2 Blu-ray and the sold out one is the Blu-ray Wildhogs. Wow, that is quite the selection. I did see a Heroes HD DVD stuffed in the bottom of the Xbox 360 case.

Regular Walmart:
Nada. Not a thing on the shelves.

So this is the store everyone is clammering over getting to support their format? I still can't believe that Walmart is responsible for nearly 40% of all DVD sales. They only have a single isle dedicated to DVD! Every store I go into, that's all they carry. 1 isle and a couple discount bins. It's amazing they do that much biz. Judging by the bins, I think the bulk of their sales are those 5.99 and less titles and doublefeature/triplefeature packins for $10-$15. Blu-ray and HD DVD will be shunned at these stores with their $25 and $30 pricetags.

[buckshot]

I was going to post something about walmart but I didn't want to start a new thread. I was at my wife's walmart today and I saw blus on display for the first time. they had 3 titles in with the ps3 games and 1 other titles on the other side of electronics underneath their ipod display. I was looking for hd dvd but couldn't find any anywhere. until we were walking out and I spotted 1 copy of heroes on hd dvd. but it was mixed in with gilmore girls dvd sets and was in fact in the gilmore girls slot.

[ifg]

Different walmarts have differant selections. the walmart in my town has about the same amount of blu-rays as your picture, but then when I went to another walmart in another town, they had a really nice setup with a lot of BD and HDDVD's. In addition, to displays showcasing each. So it is going to be different from place to place.
It was amazing to see how many people stopped to take a look as it was right in front of the electronics dept.

[Papi4baby]

Mine aint got jack either.

[LynxFX]

I think it just shows how slow Walmart actually is in getting this stuff out. For every one store that has that dual format displaycase we've seen pictures of, there are probably 20 stores that look like the one I pictured above. They just aren't the demographic yet. I would hope the BDA concentrates more on Target, CC, BB, etc.

[Maxell]

wal-mart is really inconsisitent among its stores. One store by me has a good selection of blu-ray and hd-dvd (in the richer area) and the ones in the poorer areas have a slim selection if any.

[Manco]

wal-mart is really inconsisitent among its stores. One store by me has a good selection of blu-ray and hd-dvd (in the richer area) and the ones in the poorer areas have a slim selection if any.

That's fairly obvious.

[blackhawktraffic]

Yeah the Super center in town has zero blu ray or HD DVD titles yet the regular one has a good amount, about 25-20 blu ray which surprised me.

[Kyot]

Im from Toronto, Canada and the walmarts here have 2-3 rows of blu rays while HD has one, but they are really dumb because they mix all the BD titles together until the column is full and so its impossible to see what titles they have in the middle section, let alone trying to get them. They have to smarten up with their displays. But even still the BD's are way too expensive in stores in Canada, thank god for Amazon.com

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

I still can't believe that Walmart is responsible for nearly 40% of all DVD sales. They only have a single isle dedicated to DVD! Every store I go into, that's all they carry. 1 isle and a couple discount bins. It's amazing they do that much biz. Judging by the bins, I think the bulk of their sales are those 5.99 and less titles and doublefeature/triplefeature packins for $10-$15. Blu-ray and HD DVD will be shunned at these stores with their $25 and $30 pricetags.

I can assure you the bins and discount racks (usually have $9.99 product) make up a ton of sales but overall it's the new releases that are usually in the front of the store during it's first week that make up most of the sales. They are really good at lost liter....meaning they are willing to take a hit and sale it for a loss (the new releases) as long as it brings customers in their store to purchase other stuff. It's one reason why I find it almost impossible to compete with the big retailers because they can afford to actually lose money when they sell this stuff.

[Lord_Stewie]

Originally Posted by LynxFX

I just went to a couple of our largest Walmarts looking for Blu-ray and HD DVD to see how they were doing with getting joesixpack into HDM. What I found is very telling about how much they are going to decide this format war for us.

Walmart Supercenter:

Their Blu-ray and HD DVD selection:


That's right, 4 titles. 1 HD DVD, 2 Blu-ray and the sold out one is the Blu-ray Wildhogs. Wow, that is quite the selection. I did see a Heroes HD DVD stuffed in the bottom of the Xbox 360 case.

Regular Walmart:
Nada. Not a thing on the shelves.

So this is the store everyone is clammering over getting to support their format? I still can't believe that Walmart is responsible for nearly 40% of all DVD sales. They only have a single isle dedicated to DVD! Every store I go into, that's all they carry. 1 isle and a couple discount bins. It's amazing they do that much biz. Judging by the bins, I think the bulk of their sales are those 5.99 and less titles and doublefeature/triplefeature packins for $10-$15. Blu-ray and HD DVD will be shunned at these stores with their $25 and $30 pricetags.

honestly i don't think this would decide the winner of the format war. i think that the majority of consumers don't purchase hi def movies from wal-mart. the one closest to me has all its HDDVDS SOLD OUT. and many blurays on shelf. i retails like best buy, and circuit city would decide this war in BDs side.

[Kousakuya]

Don't most people order HD online?

[bhampton]

No,



I'm going to decide this war. In fact, I already have. Blu Ray wins. Game over HD DVD.

-Brian