A blow to the life of physical media.
Per The Digital Bits, Best Buy is planning to cease the sale of DVDs and Blu-ray discs in their stores and online early 2024. Specifically, after the end of the 2023 holiday shopping season. This news comes just weeks after Netflix ended their DVD delivery service, withe the last DVD shipped on September 29th.
A Best Buy spokesperson said the following to Variety:
To state the obvious, the way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today than it was decades ago. Making this change gives us more space and opportunity to bring customers new and innovative tech for them to explore, discover and enjoy.
This is a sad day for those that prefer physical media. While they still have options such as Walmart (which currently has 45% of the market of physical media for films and TV at retail) Target, and Redbox, and Amazon online, this is still a huge loss. It’s worth noting that Paramount currently sells their 4K steelbook special edition Blu-rays through Amazon.
While physical media has been falling out of favor for some time, it still has its uses. notably, during internet outages, which do happen. That’s not to mention the fact that most of these companies have no real vested interest in preserving their catalogs; you very frequently see the various streaming platforms take down various movies and TV shows, whether it be due to licensing, or simply the fact that there’s not enough viewers to make keeping the show/movie on the service financially viable. Streaming is basically just chucking money into a fire and seeing what burns best, after all. This isn’t just a loss for physical media; it’s a loss for preservation.
While they do note that video games will not suffer the same fate this time, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t try to phase them out in the future. That’s pretty much the goal Microsoft has been aiming for over the past several years. And if that ever happens, things are going to get unpleasant; maybe not immediately, but quickly.
Source: Engadget
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