(zyphbear)
Not content to beckon to you subliminally from its kiosks planted in heavily trafficked areas, Redbox’s corporate parent Coinstar announced it will launch a streaming service next year. Teaming with an unannounced partner, the instant rental service will go head to head with the Netflixes and Hulus of the world.
Coinstar dropped the news last week during a quarterly earnings call, Yahoo reports.
If you’re into movie streaming, what will Redbox need to do for you to convince you to give it a shot?
Redbox to start streaming in 2011, with a partner (to be named later) [Yahoo via Engadget]
Previously: Redbox Wants To Get Into Online DVD Rental & Streaming Biz
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Excellent point.
Thank you!
Words to live by indeed.
+1
The article talked about a survey done in April that asked people whether they would like a $3.95 monthly plan that allowed for unlimited streaming and four free DVD rentals.
I think that would be competition for cable companies and pay per view, rather than Netflix. It’s been established for years that If you insist on watching new releases the day of release, Redbox is probably the service you used anyway. People don’t use Netflix exclusively for new releases; they use Netflix because of the variety and back catalog.
And also, I’m not sure this model could even sustain itself. Netflix, arguably, has more money and it even can’t justify spending ludicrous amounts of money to obtain streaming licenses for all new releases. How will Redbox sustain this?
Redbox barely gets new releases anymore either though. And if they start to offer the same movies via streaming, you can bet the production companies will pull the plug on them too.
might actually be competitive now.
No matter who wins, we lose.
Why is that? Netflix is cheap and awesome. What’s not to love? Redbox doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.
You always lose when you define “lose” as “I’m not getting something for free.”
That’s when you start torrenting shit haha.
You get stuff for free all day long. It’s strange to me that you think of good customer service and a customer first attitude as unreasonable to expect.
Right now I have 17+ over the air channels for free. I have almost all the recent prime time TV shows streamed through hulu for free. I get all the movies and TV I can watch from Netflix for free (on top of the $9 rental fee). I always get stuff for free. It turns out that lots of businesses are able to make money by giving things away.
What I mean is whoever wins the battle for dominance in this or any market usually gets to charge what ever they want to a certain extent. I know Netflix has a history of doing right by its customers but history has shown that most companies start off with a “customers first” and that soon changes to “bottom line first”.
My biggest fear exactly. NetFlix is like the Nordstroms or Zappos of the movie world. Their customer service is head-and-shoulders above all others.
I wake up in cold sweats worrying that I’ll be reading the paper when I come across some little buried blur saying that NetFlix switched CEO’s or something.
I’m happy with Netflix, although I hope they get more of their catalog on streaming. I’ve been using that way more lately than the DVDs.
We recently upgraded to the Blu-ray 2 at a time plan but we still mostly use streaming. It’s nice to be able to get some things on Blu ray though.
Stopped by a Red Box last night at the airport while dropping off a friend. They had a movie I didn’t even know was out, but a quick check on our Netflix account put it into our queue.
They’ll have to do something or offer significantly more for less money to get us to switch off Netflix at this point.
We use 2 blu ray at a time too. We went to 3 for awhile, but always end up with 1-2 movies sitting for a week or 2.
Well..good luck I guess. Netflix is just plainly awesome. The price is reasonable, and it seems like every few months they add new services or features. And they are getting more and more new releases for streaming. Plus, if there is ever any problem, they take care of it promptly, and sometimes proactively, before you even ask.
I can’t imagine standing in front of that kiosk at wal-mart for 90 minutes while the movie plays.
Especially if they start carrying porn.
In that case, I’ll need to sit down.
Wal-Mart will offer a special viewers’ package that includes Cheetos and Kleenex.
Cheetos and kleenex? Cheetos and kleenex?!? My mind reels… Yuk!
Thank you for the comment, I now know what coffee in my nose is like when I took a sip and accidentally snorted while laughing.
THIS… is my favorite comment – ever.
Hopefully they’ll have a better selection than Netflix streaming.
The only way they can is if the price is about what we pay at Amazon and Apple for their streaming. The studios are not going to let them stream new releases for a lower price point.
I also hope that Redbox can get their streaming selections to stick around longer than what Netflix gets them for, namely forever.
If Redbox can do this, I’ll consider it.
It’s crazy- I really can’t remember the last “physical DVD” I watched- all I do is stream. We’re with Netflix and Amazon on demand and unless redbox releases new stuff parallel to the physical release we’re not going anywhere. Roku ftw!
Crud, why didn’t you print this on Thursday.
I read the article and thought this might be a good time to buy shares in Coinstar (CSTR).
Oops, too late.
The problem with Netflix, is that they don’t stream lots of older shows. Stuff like Welcome Back Kotter, All in the family, Renegade, Family Matters, Who’s The Boss, those kind of old shows, back when tv was actually good.
So…Redbox doesn’t do this either. Netflix will most likely get these licenses eventually, though.
Plus those shows suck, so there’s that.
I must have been the only kid who hated Family Matters.
Netflix has plenty of older shows available for streaming, including some stuff not available on DVD.
I’m willing to try it. I’m sure the movie studios will try and play redbox and netflix against each other. Netflix is becoming pretty powerful and th studios are worried about how much influence netflix has. Remember when the studios cut a more favorable deal with blockbuster than netflix?
There is no way they can stream unlimited for $4 along with 4 rentals, not even crap. Especially not new releases. New releases need to be at least $4 or so per movie, the studios will demand it. I don’t think there will ever be an all you can eat model for new releases.
They’ll compete with Netflix, for sure. Hulu Plus, though , can’t even compete against its own (free) service.
too bad the movie/tv studios are the ones tat still hole all of the “content” by the short & curly hairs….
Redbox makes its living on new releases. Those already steam via cable pay-per-view. What can Redbox really do to compete with that?
Oh, sure, they could try to under-sell the cable PPV, the way the rentals undercut Blockbuster prices. But would that actually work? Like without the cable company blocking the Redbox server? (or more rationally, throttling the bandwidth to the point where they either upsell a connection improvement or just leverage “but ours looks better!”)
Not everyone has cable.
If they had new releases that are not on Netflix streaming, I would pay $1 a pop and stream a movie every now and then. This is how I use Redbox now-for impulse movie wants so I don’t have to wait a few days to get it in the mail. Needs to be $1 though or I probably won’t do it (this is why I don’t rent from amazon on demand). Also needs to work on Roku.
You know I wonder how long Studios will hold on to the idea that people want to drop 15 bucks a week on a DVD new release. And now with Blue-Ray its 25 bucks. That was fine and dandy when I was 23 and had lots of extra cash and lots of free time to watch movies. Now I am lucky to get a free 2 hours to watch a movie that isn’t family oriented.
I wonder if they will wait so long it destroys thier whole model like it did with the Recording Industry.
Unless they offer older movies, I wouldn’t really be interested.
Redbox customers don’t have high speed internet access, or low speed internet access…or computers.