Sony partners with Wal-Mart video service on new release feature
In a bid to spur digital movie purchases, Sony Pictures has struck a deal with Wal-Mart’s Vudu video streaming service to add video sharing and other features to new releases including “This Is the End” and “After Earth” as well as forthcoming titles such as “Smurfs 2” and “One Direction.”
The feature, dubbed Vudu Extras+, will enable consumers who’ve bought a movie through the online service — or deposited a copy in their digital storage locker — to search for scenes or lines of dialogue, or clip and share a film vignette on Facebook or Twitter. These features are intended to enhance the attractiveness of buying a movie at a time when video subscription services like Netflix are gaining subscribers and popularity.
“In order to move the consumer over to that experience of actually collecting movies digitally, we have to give them more value,” said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “This is part of it.”
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Digital movie sales in the first half of the year jumped 50% from a year earlier, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry-funded nonprofit. The increase came as major studios — including Sony, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and Disney — began offering consumers early access to digital versions of some films, at times weeks ahead of their availability on DVD or Blu-ray disc. Twentieth Century Fox also dropped the price for a digital copy to $14.99 from $19.99. Sales of its individual digital titles so far this year have risen more than 200% from the same period last year.
Tom Adams, media analyst for researcher IHS, said such factors are helping fuel digital purchases, together with growing support for UltraViolet, a studio-backed cloud technology that allows consumers to access their film collections from a growing number of movie sites and watch them on a variety of devices. Wal-Mart also offers a disc-to-digital program that enables customers to convert their DVDs and Blu-ray discs for a modest fee of $2 to $5 each.
“The proposition is getting better in several ways,” Adams said.
Colin Dixon, founder of the research firm NScreenMedia, said the gains in what the industry terms “electronic sell through” still aren’t enough to offset declining physical media sales. He said the new Vudu features are “nice window dressing” but are unlikely to make a material difference in digital movie sales.
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“The reason is that consumers are still not comfortable with ownership in the cloud — that’s the first thing,” Dixon said. “The second thing is that [consumers are] getting a lot out of their subscription services.... In the U.S., subscription services seem to be more comfortable for consumers at the moment.
Bishop said he remains “bullish” on the future of digital ownership, especially with the support of such major retailers as Wal-Mart and Target, which recently launched its “Target Ticket” store.
“We would like other studios to be involved to help us build this out even further,” Bishop said. “And use all the creativity that exists in other home entertainment divisions to continue to build this functionality.”
Sony will initially offer the Vudu Extras+ features on its 2009 science fiction film “District 9,” a title Bishop said is likely to appeal to a digital consumer. The studio plans to follow up with other newly released titles, Bishop said.
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