Best Buy US BD Disney Steelbooks

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by sconde

It only takes one to clean house

True! That's okay. I sent a scouting report to a buddy and we will hopefully let each other know which movies they have in stock.

[TM2-Megatron]

Originally Posted by suiseiseki

So how many fellow Canadians feel seriously duped by FS on this?

I wouldn't exactly say duped... Future Shop's called something exclusive before, when what they really meant is that they're the exclusive resellers for Canada. So it's not as if there wasn't any precedent.

Also, I'd have bought these regardless of rarity. I don't buy movies to hoard, or resell on eBay. I buy only movies I like, and I happen to really enjoy most Disney flicks; and these Steelbooks were still a good buy whatever happens. Especially if the $34.99 USD price at Best Buy holds true, since many of these were $26.99 CDN. Canada still got the better deal.

Also, how much more than that did most of the FutureShop Disney releases really sell for on eBay anyway? I saw Buy It Now auctions for the vast majority of them around the $39.99-$41.99 price point. So some of the more diehard collectors paid $5-7 more than they might've had everyone been informed that BB would be selling the same cases. That group of people are generally used to paying a premium for the way they do things, anyway. Collecting anything has always been a case of "you win some, you lose some". Most collectors eventually have to learn to deal with that philosophically, or just give up collecting because the stress is too much.

We've yet to see the average quantities BB locations around the U.S. get of each title. It's guaranteed to still be a fairly small number, so those cases are still a fairly special release IMO; moreso considering they're Disney.

[jw]

This is hilarious, Best Buy is taking away the honeypot canada had over the USA....I know some here help at a reasonable cost but others are taking advantage of others on this. You still have an exclusive product to Canada. They will retain their value, just not at a scalper level

[Bolaar]

Considering...

Disney is here to make money.

BB is here to make money.

I would expect them to sell until they could not any more. Sad but true.


They don't care about "collectors" nor the resell market. If there is a resellers market they are losing money in their eyes.

[crashkelly]

Originally Posted by TM2-Megatron

I wouldn't exactly say duped... Future Shop's called something exclusive before, when what they really meant is that they're the exclusive resellers for Canada. So it's not as if there wasn't any precedent.

Also, I'd have bought these regardless of rarity. I don't buy movies to hoard, or resell on eBay. I buy only movies I like, and I happen to really enjoy most Disney flicks; and these Steelbooks were still a good buy whatever happens. Especially if the $34.99 USD price at Best Buy holds true, since many of these were $26.99 CDN. Canada still got the better deal.

Also, how much more than that did most of the FutureShop Disney releases really sell for on eBay anyway? I saw Buy It Now auctions for the vast majority of them around the $39.99-$41.99 price point. So some of the more diehard collectors paid $5-7 more than they might've had everyone been informed that BB would be selling the same cases. That group of people are generally used to paying a premium for the way they do things, anyway. Collecting anything has always been a case of "you win some, you lose some". Most collectors eventually have to learn to deal with that philosophically, or just give up collecting because the stress is too much.

We've yet to see the average quantities BB locations around the U.S. get of each title. It's guaranteed to still be a fairly small number, so those cases are still a fairly special release IMO; moreso considering they're Disney.

I still think we were duped, and it is not about scalping, hoarding or anything to that effect, but rather they way it was presented by FutureShop and by their marketing department within the FS forums. I have not believed in "exclusive" items for a long time now, but these steels were presented as "only will be available in canada and nowhere else". Granted, they didn't want to be left with a crap load after the fact, but still ......

[TM2-Megatron]

Originally Posted by Bolaar

Considering...

Disney is here to make money.

Sure, but Disney also realizes that collectors are a tiny fraction of their customers; so there's no way they'd ever pay to produce more of these than they think can sell. The only reason they probably cater to collectors at al is because they know that group is willing to pay more than the average person.

The majority of Disney's customers are parents, though, and no parent in their right mind would ever be willing to pay a premium for a special case that their child woud likely dent in the first 2 minutes after being given the thing. And it does seem like BB is charging a premium for these cases in the U.S., whereas Future Shop sold them for the same prices as their Amaray equivalents.

Originally Posted by crashkelly

I still think we were duped, and it is not about scalping, hoarding or anything to that effect, but rather they way it was presented by FutureShop and by their marketing department within the FS forums. I have not believed in "exclusive" items for a long time now, but these steels were presented as "only will be available in canada and nowhere else". Granted, they didn't want to be left with a crap load after the fact, but still ......

I never got that impression, but maybe I wasn't loitering around the forum quite from the beginning of the promotion. In their flyers and ads, though, the Disney steelbooks were presentedly no differently than any other Steelbook FS has sold as an "exclusive", and most of those (like Star Trek) were sold by other retailers in other countries.

[kaliraver]

I guess Canada is following the German market with other folks re-releasing their "Exclusive" SteelBooks. The SteelBook market right now worldwide is very unpredictable and unstable. I am glad that I still need 5 SteelBooks from the Disney 12 weeks program and I am glad for all our US members here that we won't have to pay a premium for these no longer. $35 is much easier to swallow than $50-60 per SteelBook.

[Arkitect76]

Originally Posted by kaliraver69

$35 is much easier to swallow than $50-60 per SteelBook.

[steveland]

Let's not be selfish here. I'm happy for our US members who missed out on the FS steels. Maybe they'll even be getting US exclusives down the line and it will be our turn to need their help.

[Travis Bickle]

Will the cover artwork be identical to the canadian releases? That would be so cool (and ironic) if they came up with different artwork to the FutureShop steels. And we would be wanting to buy them from you guys.

[mr. b]

Originally Posted by jwbbud

This is hilarious, Best Buy is taking away the honeypot canada had over the USA....I know some here help at a reasonable cost but others are taking advantage of others on this. You still have an exclusive product to Canada. They will retain their value, just not at a scalper level

+1! I also can't see how this is such a big surprise when Best Buy released Snow White and UP already, and if I remember correctly, Snow White came out in the US before Futureshop got it. It's not like Best Buy had no idea these Disney SteelBooks existed. I wish it would have been announced early on to piss off all those scalpers salivating at the chance to hoard them on release day and dump them on ebay. I'm pissed in a way, but mainly because all I keep reading about is how all of a sudden, these Disney steels are going to be worth less than what was initially thought. I guess I'm just used to how this can happen when collecting something. I don't see $ signs when I look at my SteelBooks, I just see something I like to collect.

I've spent lots of money on some of them in the past, only for them to be made available for less than half what I paid for, such as some of the German ones like Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I paid over $100 to get them both when they went OOP, and then they show up later on amazon for dirt cheap. Don't get me wrong, I got upset, but then I figured I'll just pick up another copy later and average out the prices between the two copies to figure out it's trade value. If I wind up not getting a second copy, big deal. I chalk up the extra money spent on simply wanting to get the movies into my collection. I don't plan on selling or trading them anytime soon, if ever. You win some you lose some, but if losing some is going to bother you greatly, then collecting them is going to be a lousy experience. I can pretty much guarantee that one.

For all we know, Best Buy in the US saw the market for these and decided to contact Scanavo after the fact, and it just makes good business sense for Best Buy to offer them up to the US since there is obviously a market and a demand for them right now. Either way, I don't think Futureshop had anything to do with Best Buy getting them this late in the the game, and they probably were not aware of it. I'm guessing this is the case because of what was already said when Snow White appeared. From what I've read, Futureshop Canada and Best Buy USA did not approach Scanavo and Disney together to strike a deal. They deal with Scanavo and the studios independently, so I can't really see why anyone would be pissed or duped by Futureshop, unless they can provide some type of proof that Futureshop knew all along that they were going to also be released by Best Buy from the very beginning. Either way, they are still exclusive to Futureshop in Canada, they are just now also exclusive to Best Buy in the US.

I still think these Disney Steels will retain some value since they are Disney's, and they are some of their most successful movies. Okay, so Canada is not going to be the only country that has them, and the value of them is not going to hit triple digits on release day in the secondary market. HOORAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would rather see all these Disney SteelBooks be made readily available for Collector's that want them. Anyone in this for some type of future monetary gain is collecting for ALL the wrong reasons. For all we know, Scanavo may decide to later on sell just the cases directly on any of their previous releases. A copyright is also only good for so long, and once it expires, anyone can come in and make the exact same product and put their name on it.

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by steveland

Let's not be selfish here. I'm happy for our US members who missed out on the FS steels. Maybe they'll even be getting US exclusives down the line and it will be our turn to need their help.

Thank you! I agree. Help the US Economy out

Originally Posted by Travis Bickle

Will the cover artwork be identical to the canadian releases? That would be so cool (and ironic) if they came up with different artwork to the FutureShop steels. And we would be wanting to buy them from you guys.

I believe it seems it's the same artwork since the USA will be getting the leftovers from Future Shop.

[apsmith21]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

I believe it seems it's the same artwork since the USA will be getting the leftovers from Future Shop.

Probably the same artwork, all done at the same time in one factory run.

I doubt these are leftovers from the Future Shop promotion - not enough copies to go around in Canada. Very likely they have been sitting in a Best Buy warehouse for a while.

Now if you were talking about Watchmen...you might be on to something there...

[Arkitect76]

Originally Posted by apsmith21

I doubt these are leftovers from the Future Shop promotion - not enough copies to go around in Canada. Very likely they have been sitting in a Best Buy warehouse for a while.

Yeah i dont think they are leftovers this was probably coldy thought out...if they were limited in Canada, this might have been the reason why....

with the amount of stores in the US....there might be more here than in Canada...

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by apsmith21

Probably the same artwork, all done at the same time in one factory run.

I doubt these are leftovers from the Future Shop promotion - not enough copies to go around in Canada. Very likely they have been sitting in a Best Buy warehouse for a while.

Now if you were talking about Watchmen...you might be on to something there...

Originally Posted by sconde

Yeah i dont think they are leftovers this was probably coldy thought out...if they were limited in Canada, this might have been the reason....

Good More for us!

[suiseiseki]

My guess is the original plan was to market these steelbooks to the USA only. Best Buy USA probably made an deal with Disney early in the year for X number of steelbooks in the USA market. Only early in the process they decided to let Canada have a slice of those steelbooks, so Future Shop got a fraction of this pie distributed as part of the 12 weeks. Hence the oddball and random low numbers for each release. If it was a print run specifically for Canada, then the numbers would probably be more consistent with the 4000 minimum per run or whatever it is.

I don't think Best Buy decided to get on the ball AFTER seeing the success in Canada. Rather they were probably the ones that sourced Future Shop. Not hard to imagine considering Best Buy owns Future Shop.

[KYThrill]

Originally Posted by suiseiseki

My guess is the original plan was to market these steelbooks to the USA only. Best Buy USA probably made an deal with Disney early in the year for X number of steelbooks in the USA market. Only early in the process they decided to let Canada have a slice of those steelbooks, so Future Shop got a fraction of this pie distributed as part of the 12 weeks. Hence the oddball and random low numbers for each release. If it was a print run specifically for Canada, then the numbers would probably be more consistent with the 4000 minimum per run or whatever it is.

I don't think Best Buy decided to get on the ball AFTER seeing the success in Canada. Rather they were probably the ones that sourced Future Shop. Not hard to imagine considering Best Buy owns Future Shop.

Wouldn't that pretty much make Ian @ Future Shop a liar? He is the one who said there were only 1500 of the Disney steels. If this all happened at a corporate level where Best Buy bought 15000 of them, and gave FS 1500, its pretty much impossible that Ian wouldn't have known this (since he is at the corporate level). He would had to have know there was a much bigger pool, but lied about there only being 1500 made to hype the promotion up.

[Ashamed Pegasus]

Originally Posted by jwbbud

This is hilarious, Best Buy is taking away the honeypot canada had over the USA....I know some here help at a reasonable cost but others are taking advantage of others on this. You still have an exclusive product to Canada. They will retain their value, just not at a scalper level

And I think that is what has most people upset about the whole deal... They thought these were super-rare about would be worth hundreds down the road... I'm not sure about numbers but I would expect BB to receive 5X as many of these as FS did...

[TM2-Megatron]

Originally Posted by suiseiseki

My guess is the original plan was to market these steelbooks to the USA only. Best Buy USA probably made an deal with Disney early in the year for X number of steelbooks in the USA market. Only early in the process they decided to let Canada have a slice of those steelbooks, so Future Shop got a fraction of this pie distributed as part of the 12 weeks. Hence the oddball and random low numbers for each release. If it was a print run specifically for Canada, then the numbers would probably be more consistent with the 4000 minimum per run or whatever it is.

I don't think Best Buy decided to get on the ball AFTER seeing the success in Canada. Rather they were probably the ones that sourced Future Shop. Not hard to imagine considering Best Buy owns Future Shop.

I'm not sure, but that seems unlikely to me. Canada got less, obviously because our population is a tiny fraction of theirs. But Future Shop's handling of the Steelbooks (ignoring the technical glitches with pre-orders, etc.) seems more organized and better thought-out than whatever Best Buy has done so far.

The 12 Weeks promotion, in theory, was an excellent idea. Information on it was made available a reasonable time before the Steelbooks started becoming avaiable, it staggers the releases to make it a more affordable proposition than buying a ton of Blu-Rays all at once, and it ends just in time to have made all the Steelbooks available for Christmas. Even in practice, it wasn't half-bad if you went out to your store in person and were one of the first people in at opening. The online pre-ordering had its glitches but, for the most part, was acceptable. Apparently a few of the first releases went live a few minutes earlier than noon and caused some people to miss out... but as FS learned from the experience, a couple of their employees at least started posting on the community forum and indicating exactly when each Steelbook would come up for pre-order (if it wasn't possible to get it up at Noon a week prior to release day). And by all accounts, the last 2 Steelbook online pre-order went pretty well. Cars and Pirates 1 both went up at Noon, and everyone had a fair chance to grab one. FutureShop traditionally isn't in the business of selling collectibles, so there was a bit of a learning curve for them... but I think they're getting there.

Best Buy, on the other hand, seems to be about to spring a large-scale release on people with no real advance notice unless they happen to frequent these (or a few other select) forums. Sure it's feasible, but who among you really wants to buy all the remaining 11 Disney Steelbooks not yet made available to the U.S. all in one day? And mostly for higher price tags than Future Shop set on them in a currency worth slightly less than yours? And even if (as is likely) Best Buy recieved several times more of these than Future Shop did for Canada, your population is close to 10x the size of ours. These will be just as hard-to-get for you guys as they were for people here... maybe harder, since I doubt BB will be getting 10x the number we did. Maybe 4x or 5x, as a few others have estimated.

Just my 2 cents, but Best Buy's release strategy definitely seems more like the afterthought between the two of them. So it seems more likely to me that it was originally the idea of Future Shop, and Best Buy chose to release them in the U.S. after seeing how well they sold.

[Bolaar]

Before we get ahead of ourselves here...


Nothing is 100% confirmed in any way, shape or form.

BB could be interfacing with FutureShop's computers now and the SKUs just suddenly appeared.

Until they appear I assume nothing and trust no one. Someone could be laughing their arse off after posting this.

So far only 1 person has confirmed the SKUs, at least that I have seen.


And their advertising is atrocious. How they let this slide is beyond me.