Road Games

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by Grifter02

Wow. Congratulations on being a snob and also completely missing the point at the same time.

Neither of them complained about it being too expensive. They were wondering why it was more expensive directly from the manufacturer.

Seriously, were you having a bad day or something? That's an incredibly mean-spirited post for no reason at all. Maybe you should change your name to "McCrotchety"

I apologize if you guys didn't see the humor in what I wrote above, I thought I made that clear with the way I wrote it, but perhaps not.

Let me attempt to be clearer:

I'm sure that all of you realize this, but last time I checked, JB HiFi was one of, if not the, biggest supplier of home entertainment products in Australia. That means that they have legions of deals in place with suppliers, distributors, and shipping authorities to give them bulk discounts at probably every step of the way from when you log on to their site, all the way to when the item(s) you've ordered arrive(s) at your doorstep.

In turn, because they do so much business at these discounts, they can afford to sell more items, at a cheaper price, than most anyone else. Now, they may not always take advantage of that ability, especially because JB HiFi probably never want to sell anything for less than they can get away with, but notice that they also never supply the RRP on their site, either. So, that $15.98 price for Road Games on JB HiFi? That's surely the price they (JB HiFi) want to sell it to you for, based on what they can afford (and I'm not up on Australian business law, but at least with Amazon sites, as I understand it, the manufacturer receives the same amount of money for copies sold/supplied regardless of what price the Amazon site decides to sell it for). And the $1.69 delivery charge certainly has nothing to do with Umbrella, because that's between JB HiFi and their shipping partners.

Now, Umbrella is currently charging $19.99, so really, you're being charged $4.01 extra, plus a shipping charge, which I can't see without loading in an Australian address. However, from what is stated above (please correct me if I'm wrong), it somehow works out to a grand total of $6 more than $17.67, or $23.67.

Now, I think that's not bad for any release, really. Most RRP's are far more than $6 more what sites like Amazon or JB HiFi charge, and not just because the retailers need all of that money, either. And maybe, Umbrella don't need the extra money (though somehow, I strongly doubt it), but you know what, they probably deserve it, certainly more than JB HiFi does. JB HiFi probably doesn't give a toss about putting any films on Blu-ray, other than maybe Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

But as far as I can tell, Umbrella Entertainment is currently one of the very few Australian labels that is actually interested in Blu-ray in spite of the Australian Blu-ray market, and recently, they seem to have the best track record. Yes, obviously Madman have the Anime and Asian market cornered, but just go and look at everything Madman doesn't release on BD, including Columbo, which they had to yank after two seasons, and The Rockford Files, which they might have put out on BD, but only put out on DVD after Columbo sold poorly. And I also get the impression that Madman is bigger than Umbrella are. As far as I can tell, Via Vision (who are connected to Madman) are trying themselves, but the outlook for Season 2 of Quantum Leap and SeaQuest DSV isn't looking good, considering their pre-orders have all but disappeared, and they were supposed to be arriving in March and June. So that's potentially more bad news for Australian Blu-ray fans (and others, like me, too).

And I realize that all of you know this, but I did feel it was important to outline why I said what I said, given how Grifter02 responded to my initial failed attempt at humor. () This is what the situation looks like to me, from outside. I certainly hope and pray that the appearance of things over here belies a healthier situation for Australians on the ground over there.

But, even so, considering this whole situation, I really don't think it's unreasonable for Umbrella, who must be pouring money into this release, with the new 4K scan and hours of extras, to charge us all a few dollars more than the one of the biggest retail chains in the entire country, and I certainly don't think it's unreasonable to question why people would quibble over such a thing.

I mean, don't you guys all want more great Blu-rays from Umbrella, anyway? I know I do.