Quoting eommen:

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Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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It's a cheap blame game by Play. Ever since Rakuten took over they become more and more awful. Good riddance to them though the job losses are obviously a shame.

HMV could be next...

Quoting VirtualScot:

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HMV is not a question of if, but when. To quote a certain film. HMV is like a timex watch, in a digital age. Let's hope Amazon get some competition though. Monopoly is never a good thing, for us consumers.

Seems both your words are profetic: see the Guardian (14 Jan around 20:52).

Now watch, as many great small distributors, like Optimum and Artificial Eye. Go under, and many films lost to the vaults. Dark days ahead people. Very dark 

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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Optimum are already no more. Bought by Studio Canal ages ago and I think all new releases come under the  SC name.

There a small distributor, under SC. Renamed Optimum Releasing.

Edit: Looks like they are now SC UK

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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Wrong. Optimum Releasing are no more. They operate and distribute under Studio Canal now. The last title to use the Optimum logo were the October 2011 releases (The Three Musketeers / The Four Musketeers). Every releases since then AFAIK has been under Studio Canal branding.

Yeah i just investigated. My mistake. But still this could affect them badly.

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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Well according to the articvle linked above HMV are a huge % of sales, but people will  just go elsewhere. When one company falls, another takes its place! It'd be a shame to lose the Oxford Street store though - the biggest record shop in the world.

btw, Momentum Pictures officially underwent a name change a few days ago to EOne Momentum after Entertainment One's buyout of Alliance finally went through.

As for Optimum going under, unlikely as I think Universal own a huge % of Studio Canal.

A lot of people find these films, by browsing the shelf's. When buying online, you need to know specifically what your looking for. From having seen the film, on another medium. Or through word of mouth, research.

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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HMV have now stopped accepting gift vouchers.

Is that a bad sign yes? Are they next?!

Bearing in mind the online is a different business on paper so online probably not affected.

Zavvi went bust years ago but kept the online - even if they are a bunch of meanie-weanies.

Amazon.com is taking a big hit here in the US for other reasons.

This year, Amazon has been forced to collect Sales Taxes from it's US customers for all online purchases even if Amazon doesn't have a physical Brick and Mortar store in the State where the purchase originates from. This is hurting Amazon's bottom line as many customers, myself included, have stopped ordering current DVD/Blu-ray titles from them for the simple fact that we can just go down the street to Target or Best Buy and get the titles we want for close to the same price on the day of release and not have to pay shipping charges on top of the Sales Tax.

Online streaming is also hurting Amazon as more and more people are turing to Netflix, Hulu and others as their entertainment medium. I have cut way, way back on my DVD/Blu-ray purchases for the simple fact that it's more economical for me to pay $7.95 a month for unlimited streaming, albeit that the release of new and popular titles is very slow on Netflix. I would gladly pay $10-$12 a month if Netflix could guarantee a 30 day release of new titles. While the HD quality of the streaming isn't on par with actual Blu-ray, and we're limited to Dolby 5.1, it's good enough for my aging eyes and ears.

The problem with streaming, is you need fiber optic internet, to really benefit from it. Most places in Britain, don't have it.  So till that changes, you won't being seeing, any dramatic shifts to streaming here.