blockbuster

A leaked internal memo shows that Blockbuster will be lowering the price of the entry-level 40GB model PlayStation 3 this weekend. Kotaku was able to get a screenshot of the memo, which clearly shows a new price of $360. Also, the store-exclusive Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray/Transformers video game and HDMI cable bundle will drop to $460.

This may seem like a decent bargain, but remember that $40 more will double your hard drive capacity to 80GB. (Confusingly, the "old" 80GB model, which had four USB ports and flash media slots, has mostly disappeared from store shelves. The new … Read more

Philip Schoonover, chairman, president, and CEO of embattled electronics retailer Circuit City, resigned Monday, the company announced.

His resignation is effective immediately, and he will be replaced by James Marcum as president and CEO, and by Allen King as chairman of the board of directors.

Marcum joined Circuit City's board in June and was elected vice chairman in August. His specialty is electronics retail--he was selected in order to help the struggling retailer while it tries to right itself. He has helped several other specialty retailers while in the midst of their own turnarounds.

Newly installed chairman King said … Read more

Netflix has traced the causes of a lengthy system outage this month that prevented the online movie rental service from shipping for several days to a hardware glitch.

The good news for the company is that it received lots of help from vendors to determine that the cause of the outage, which hobbled the company's ability to ship DVDs from August 11 to August 15, was a "key faulty hardware component." Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said the company's "strongest aspiration is to safeguard this from ever happening again."

The bad news for the … Read more

A class action lawsuit filed earlier this week targets Facebook and eight of the participants in Beacon, its ill-fated advertising product that shared information about third-party site activity with the social network. The set of 20 plaintiffs, mostly residents of Texas, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday. Named as defendants are Facebook, as well as current or former Beacon participants Blockbuster, Fandango (owned by Comcast), Overstock.com, STA Travel, Zappos, Hotwire (owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp), and GameFly.

A Facebook representative told CNET News on Thursday that the company had … Read more

I was slapped awake this morning by Don Reisinger's touching excoriation of Blockbuster.

"Blockbuster's ineptitude over the past few years is simply unrivaled," he reasoned.

For all I know, he is right. I mean, doesn't the man who founded Blockbuster still own the Miami Dolphins?

However, sometimes real life behavior can give you that peculiar frisson that only a back-waxing has previously achieved.

Last night, I was driving to a concert and was becoming more than usually frustrated at the lines of turgid traffic ahead of me.

I thought they must all be going to … Read more

Netflix has always been a thorn in Blockbuster's side. For years now, the company has found creative ways to shape new business models and generally make Blockbuster look old, ragged, and incredibly foolish.

And although it was facing serious financial issues that required it to close hundreds of stores and layoff thousands of employees, Blockbuster has turned things around as of late. In the last two quarters, it enjoyed a slight profit of about $40 million in each period.

With that in mind, I was under the impression that things were finally turning the corner and it would have the ability to realize that the future of its business isn't in the brick-and-mortar, but in the wide world of downloads. And although its stock price is laughable and its foolhardy decision to go after Circuit City made it look desperate, I thought Blockbuster would finally wake up and get to work on something worthwhile.

Evidently, I was wrong.

Instead, it's (once again) Netflix realizing that the future of the the rental business isn't in the brick-and-mortar and probably not even in the mail sector. It's Netflix that's adapting to the changing times by streaming movies and TV shows to its Roku box and, now, the Xbox 360.

And in one fell swoop, Netflix has once again made Blockbuster irrelevant.… Read more

The rotten corpse of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger has apparently reanimated itself and is wandering down Wall Street, munching on the brains of News Corp. and Time Warner, recruiting them to its unholy cause. Sigh. In other news, Microsoft has a new Office subscription service, Blockbuster decided Circuit City just isn't worth it, and we debunk the Texas PC repair hysteria that's sweeping the blogosphere. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Microsoft seeks partners for new run at Yahoo http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121496732802022117.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982741-7.html

Office subscription service ready to … Read more

In a not-so-stunning announcement last night, Blockbuster announced that it has withdrawn its bid for Circuit City due to concerns over the viability of the big box retailer.

"Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster's shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. "We continue to believe in the strategic merits of a consumer retail proposition that would bring media content and electronic devices together under one brand. We will pursue this strategy through our Blockbuster stores as a way to diversify the business and better serve the entertainment retail segment."

Ever since this deal was announced, I've said it would never happen and was one of the few that said it wasn't worth the trouble. First off, Blockbuster didn't even have the funds to acquire Circuit City, and secondly, I simply didn't understand why a company with its own financial woes would want to be involved with another facing extreme pressure.

Evidently the shareholders agreed with my evaluation. Even though Blockbuster offered $6 per share -- a 54 percent premium -- Circuit City stock hasn't seen $6 since December of last year. In other words, no one was excited about this deal and they quickly realized that Blockbuster was bidding far too much for a company that's worth far too little.

But what happens next for these companies? Will Blockbuster try something new? Will Circuit City be swallowed up by a different company?

Here's what I think:… Read more

Movie-rental chain Blockbuster announced Tuesday that it has withdrawn its $1 billion bid for consumer electronics chain Circuit City.

Chief Executive James Keyes blamed "market conditions" for the demise of the proposed deal, valued at one time at more than $1.3 billion.

"Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster's shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City," Keyes said in a statement. "We continue to believe in the strategic merits of a consumer … Read more