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He’s at it again. About a week ago, Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Eric Wold suggested that a streaming partnership between Redbox and Amazon would be mutually beneficial. Today, Wold made the same proposal, but swapped Amazon out for the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.
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Said Wold:

“A partnership would not only help Redbox access digital rental/purchase opportunities through CE devices, but Walmart could further boost its stake in the kiosk market as well as traffic to kiosks within its stores,”

Wold went on to comment that, despite the seemingly imminent demise of physical rental in the wake of streaming, people will still be renting discs for a while yet:

“We believe the estimated 91 million households that own a DVD player are more likely to gravitate towards the less-expensive and technologically-easier-to-understand DVD rentals over digital for at least the next five-to-10 years (especially with additional brick-and-mortar store closures),”

To Wold’s suggestion, we ask once again: would both sides see enough benefit in the hypothetical relationship to make it a reality? Is Walmart any likelier a streaming partner for Redbox than Amazon?

(via Home Media Magazine)

12 Responses to “Analyst: Redbox and Walmart Should Partner in Streaming”

  1. Member [Join Now]
    amtj03

    I seriously hope these analyst are not being paid because they seem to just be throwing any sort of entertainment giant together with Redbox to speculate about streaming. They already feature Redbox Kiosk, so I am confused how they would benefit. Steaming and VOD is not physical, so how would this introduce more foot traffic for Walmart? Walmart prides itself on being cheap and in-tuned with the common man. Why would they add a VOD service? I mean the article talks about how most homes will still be on the physical side of media(DVDs and Blu-Ray).

    I like DVDs, not movies because there really have not been any good ones worth owning in years, but TV seasons because I like the play all function. VOD is good, just to watch films I would never consider buying. But until someone offers a really good connection; who would want to depend on that to watch their favorite films? Also would not VOD be less expensive? I mean if you are talking about that asinine idea to stream new releases for $30, yes but other services, no.

  2. Member [Join Now]
    h0mi

    The first hurdle that any streaming company needs to overcome is getting consumers access to your system. Walmart’s Vudu is not widely supported. Amazon does not have the widespread adoption Netflix does. Best Buy has Cinemanow and it’s also not on every set top box or blu-ray player like Netflix is. Partnering with Red box doesn’t change any of this, and merely creating a physical front is meaningless unless you’ve got a mail order disc service you’d want to pair with Red Box kiosks. This just sounds like a big mish mash for the sake of mixing up somewhat unrelated businesses.

    Now if redbox kiosks were to also included downloaded content (on flash drives), that might be helpful but only if there’s a lot of hardware out there that supports it. And there isn’t.

  3. Visitor [Join Now]
    John Small [visitor]

    Seriously FLON? That’s what you came up with when it became obvious that Amazon was a no go?

    Try again buddy, you are looking a bigger fool every time you talk to the media.

  4. Visitor [Join Now]
    Marshall [visitor]

    Please stop feeding the trolls.

    I could almost see this. Wal-Mart has the infrastructure started through their purchase of Vudu. Now they just need to make it profitable. Red Box has the name and Wal-Mart has deep pockets. Wal-Mart is also heavily in support of Red Box through it’s kiosk agreements.

    Again however we come back to two basic problems

    – Walmart would rather go it alone. They BUY companies, not cooperate. Red Box as we know it would cease to exist. Instead we’d have Wal-Mart kiosks only in Wal-Mart and rentals would be about 4 bucks a night of what Wal-Mart wants you to see.

    – Red Box really needs to go it alone. They need to use the deep pockets of Coin Star and make their own company. Anything else will be doomed to fail.

  5. Member [Join Now]
    Alan Smithee [8traxrule]

    Wal-Mart would have to merge any streaming service they buy with Vudu to keep them from competing with each other. I’m already mad at Wal-Mart because they took all the adult titles off of Vudu once they acquired it- whether you like adult videos or not, it’s just wrong to remove content period. (When you registered a Vudu device, there was already the option to not have it list the adult titles if you didn’t want to see them.)

  6. Member [Join Now]
    starman15317

    The trolls can’t eat you unless you’re turned into a vegetable.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyophYBP_w4

    Hehe.

    I don’t think this would happen. Walmart made Redbox make their kiosks in their store blue, for crying out loud!