US retail chain Best Buy is hoping to mollify thousands of people who bought players for the now dead HD DVD movie format with gift cards.
The chain said it plans to offer $50 (£25) vouchers to those early adopters that forked out hundreds of dollars for HD DVD players. It’s small change but then it’s better than a kick in the balls.
Best Buy puts the cost of helping out those early adopters at $10 million but the cards won’t be arriving in the post until around May 1st. It’s not the same as some Japanese vendors though, which were so embarrassed by the failure of HD DVD that they offered full refunds to unlucky customers. Best Buy defecting to Blu-ray was also one of the key reasons why HD DVD finally failed.
UK buyers have not been offered anything to date by the large retail chains although some feel HD DVD customers got what they deserved for not waiting to see whether HD DVD or Blu-ray would prevail.
“The DVD format war has divided our customers in a way we haven’t seen since Betamax took on VHS more than 20 years ago,” said Brian J. Dunn, president and chief operating officer for Best Buy. “At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers’ frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other. Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs.”
Cheap marketing ploy or genuine remorse for the poor customer?-Martin Lynch
blu-ray HD DVD movies
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Full feed with ads
Full feed with ads
Newsgator
Comments
Thats a nice gesture however I don't see why Best Buy should pay the fools who adopted the HD DVD format when it was unclear what would win.
I got a analog phone at Best But in 2001 can I get $20 for being an early adopter there.
It's a nice gesture but you can't seriously say we didn't know what we were getting outselves potentially into, guess it's nice I have a PS3 as well, so was going to get burned either way :D