Wal Mart has thrown its hat into the online movie streaming service by striking a deal to buy Vudu. Terms of the deal have yet to be announced, although Wal Mart and VUDU expect to complete the deal within the next few weeks.
VUDU currently claims to have about 16,000 movies for rent and sale. The company streams the movies to Internet enabled tv’s as well as Blue Ray players.
This isn’t the first time Wal-Mart tries to get into the online movie rental business. Although previous attempts were of a much lesser financial commitment, the move does not seem to be an industry changer.
Personally being an avid Netflix user digitally on the Xbox 360 console, I have little faith in any other competitor in the industry outside of Apple with the Itunes store.
Netflix boasts an expansive selection of new and old movies available to stream digitally and it has a serious mountain to climb in regards to customer satisfaction with the platform. VUDU has yet to decide what target audience they are trying to reach and in what avenue.
With VUDU being behind Netflix and the only way it can surpass their deficit in this aspect is if Wal Mart throws some serious amount of money their way, the deal looks sour off the bat.
People do not want to purchase another box to plug more cables in. With the ability to plug in an Ipod or Itouch into a tv and watch a movie that was purchased at Itunes and can be watched on the train and at home is an easier and more enjoyable way of watching a movie.
