Creative Marketing.

The last couple of weeks I have not been the person who puts out the new releases. They have had me working in other departments instead of electronics. Had I been the one putting them out I would've mentioned this on Tuesdays post about new releases. Paranormal Activity 3 is available only in a Blu-ray/DVD combo. What they don't tell people is that the DVD by itself will be available on February 10. This is the third time that I have seen that happen. The other two releases were by Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the re-release of The Lion King. In both of those cases, the DVD was released about a month after the combo.

What they are doing is basically shoving Blu-ray down your throat. It is inevitable that DVD will be gone, my estimation is two years. Right now the hangup is the cost of a Blu-ray player, which continues to drop. Once you have an assortment of models under $50, then DVD will be gone. The same thing happened when the format was switched from VHS to DVD. One of the nice things about Blu-ray is that your regular DVDs will play on them. I do not like this tactic, but I think will be seeing a lot more of it in the future. One of the reasons it is happening is that DVD is no longer the cash cow that it once was, and the movie studios are doing everything they can to increase their revenue. I will be keeping an eye on this and any time that I find it is happening in the future I will be mentioning it. It is not a real hindrance to me personally because I rarely buy anything when it comes out. I would much rather wait until the price goes down to about $10. That is what keeps my inner Jack Benny very happy.