About 13 years ago they built a new Movie Gallery right down the road where I used to live. Three years later, they closed it and then the building was demolished. I never seen a three year old building get demolished. Anyway, when Movie Gallery announced the closing they had their rental movies at 50% off and my mother went and purchased about 15 movies.
A shame. They really should have just copied Netflix and been far more aggressive about it. THey'd still be around if they'd done that.
They've already started to copy Redbox. There's a Redbox-like machine at a gas station in town from Blockbuster.
for someone who hasn't rented anything in 9 years, how does netflix work? i have an idea of it but i want to be certain. could anyone explain? im thinking of getting it for ps3.
I'm not shocked by this in the least. Yeah my friend worked at Movie Gallery. His tale was that Movie Gallery was doing well, but then they bought out Hollywood Video, which was way over their heads in debt and they got drug under.
Simply put, I like being able to have something to show for as to where all my money is spent; I like paying to own something, not give it back
Dang, I've gone to Blockbuster for years and am sad to see it going under. Great selection, all the newest titles and a decent second hand selection. Movie Gallery is the only option for me. *edit* Only USA Blockbusters are affected. Canadian blockbusters are doing fine.
It will change your life for the better. 8 bucks a month, unlimited rentals, plus hundreds of movies to stream instantly through your PS3. If a movie is not available for instant view, you have to add it to your DVD queue, in which case they mail it to you. Keep it as long as you want and once you send it back, they'll send the next movie in your queue. You can manipulate the queue via the Netflix website.
I noticed the BB's were closing down in my town as well. I thought it was because they couldn't compete with all the on-line stuff going around, didn't consider they were going bankrupt. But, makes sense. Everything these days is now on-line. I wonder when we're going to see the drop of DVD sales because of on-line downloading.
My local Blockbuster was awsome until about a year ago. Movies (even BluRay) were $3 for 7 days. They then upped the price to $4 for DVD and $8 for Blu Ray, still okay by us. Then one day we went in and movies were $6, Blu Rays were $9, anything marked "Hot New" was a 2 day rental for the same $6 and all other rentals were now 5 days (because "its easier to remember" was the marketing behind 5 days versus 7). We went home and signed up for Netflix that night and have loved it ever since.
Does anyone have Family Video near them? Or is this a local chain? They pretty much stomped out the big rental stores years ago in my area. Blockbuster went out of business about a year ago... after only being open for <2 years. There was also a Hollywood Video that slowly closed its doors for good. It was $8 to rent a video game at HV for 1 or 3 nights, and $3 to rent it for 5 nights at Family Video. The vast majority of FV's movie rentals are $1 and some odd balls are 2 for $1. New movies are still about average near $5 a night but don't stay that way long. Family Video, ironically enough, also has a porno section - where Hollywood Video did not. I never saw one in Blockbuster. Do they have one? Hopefully the cheaper rentals and porno are enough to keep the company afloat. I like going into the store to browse for new movies. I can do the rental kiosk sometimes but the selection just isn't there. I have seen some with video games more and more so that is a plus too.
About time it happened. I am kind of sad to see it die. Like Darthbane2007, it was the place to go to rent games during the 90s for me as well.
i once rented Starfox 64 on the N64 for 2 months straight from blockbuster. it was so awesome. then one day on the employees suggested that i buy the game instead.
I'd like to mention that they aren't closing down, they just filed for bankruptcy to "restructure". The cool thing the guy mentioned yesterday is that Blu-Rays are the same price to rent as DVDs. They have that over Netflix...Netflix charges more for Blu-Ray.
SO I take it that you were against the very idea of rentals to begin with, because you do understand that redbox is essentially the same thing as blockbuster, just that it's cheaper (per rental)....right? But on topic, everyone knew this was going to happen eventually. Other chains have been going out of business for the past few years and BB recently closed hundreds of stores this past year. Frankly, I'm in love with the Redbox and Blockbuster Expresses. I love being able to rental a new release movie for a $1 per night.
Correct, I was burned by BB when I was a kid, and after that told myself I would never buy into the idea of renting movies/games.
