Heroes, WTF: Why Aren't You on Sale?
Posted by junger | February 22nd, 2008
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The format war is over. Now that HD DVD has lost, retailers across the Interwebs are putting titles on sale.
Amazon has discs on sale from 30%-57% off. Fry's has a load of movies for $14.99. The Xbox 360 external drive only costs $50!
Yet the only title I want that this format war has kept me from purchasing — Heroes Season 1 — hasn't dropped one penny in price.
No one has the discs on sale. I seriously don't get it. It's not like HD DVD is still, you know, alive.
The cheapest price online, according to Google Product search, is $66.99 (from sketchy SuperDuperClub.com).
I wouldn't be surprised if this season is never released on Blu-ray.
$66 seems like a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a TV show that you may only watch once. I'll never understand why anyone is willing to pay that much. Thankfully, the downloads have been priced more competitively than the DVD sets. The other day, I almost bought a full season of Dexter for $22 from Amazon. This seemed more fair to me. The only reason why I didn't was because they wouldn't let me download Dexter straight to TiVo.
I've been TiVoing Heroes from the start, so I've been able to watch it in HD that way, but that doesn't help you if you want to go back later and get caught up. For a while I know that Netflix had Heroes on their watch now service, so you could probably catch the shows that way for less than $20 per month, but its not going to be HD quality and you'll need to hook your laptop up to your TV if you want to watch it from your couch.
At the end of the day, it really comes down to how you prefer to get your content. If you want to own it then be prepared to bend over and get price gouged, but if you only want to watch it once and our willing to deal with lower quality video, then luckily you still have better options.
It all depends on how much you love a particular movie or tv series whether you are going to put up with having it live on your DVR until the DVR dies or is upgraded, or want to keep it for as long as possible and view it numerous times, and at multiple locations, or loan them out to other fans.
Like most box sets, the Heroes box set includes hours of commentary by the actors and creators, and that's the kind of thing that fans absolutely go crazy over. I don't think you get this added bonus from VOD or downloads.
VOD, downloading and rentals are appropriate for lots of fare, but when people have a special interest in a certain title, then you can't stop that fan from getting the box set or special edition.
Amazon has it for $69 now.
Affiliate link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QTD5TS?ie=UTF8&tag=bendraw-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000QTD5TS
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