Is Physical Media Getting Too Expensive?
Tyler Nichols
The high price of physical media is starting to make the entry point into collecting even more difficult for those wanting to leave streaming.
Physical media has had a rough go of it in 2024. Best Buy completely exiled their supply of DVD’s and Blu-Ray’s to the point that you can’t even buy them online. Target has followed suit with a severely diminished section. Thankfully, Walmart has picked up the slack and even purchased Best Buy’s supply, meaning any of those sweet Steelbooks that Best Buy offered can now be purchased at Walmart. But anyone that’s been in Wally World knows that they take their security very seriously, sometimes at the detriment of collectors. So now one of the last places to buy physical media often has shelves full of dented and bent boxes. Amazon isn’t much better if you’re wanting to go that route. And that’s not even addressing the pricing issue.
I need to make it very clear that I absolutely love boutique labels like Scream Factory, Arrow Video, Vestron Video, and more. They provide wonderful releases that I never in a million years thought we’d actually receive. Hell, I’ve got a copy of The Guyver showing up on 4K in just a few short weeks. I never would have imagined that would happen. And it makes sense to pay a premium for a film that I never thought would actually be released on the platform. But not every film fits these parameters.
The cost of streaming is often a subject of debate because these streaming sites like to increase their prices multiple times a year at this point. And with their crackdown on password sharing, it’s making streaming less appealing than ever. Yet making the switch to Physical is damn near impossible for some people. Let’s just look at 4K Ultra HD Blu Ray players which run, at their cheapest, a whopping $200. Thankfully, modern gaming consoles feature 4K players, but even those run at least $400. Still, there are a lot of gamers out there, so let’s just posit for a moment that a player as an entry point isn’t the end all, be all. But what about the price of an individual movie?
I remember fondly back when movies were released with a base price of $19.99. The first week of sales would often give a few dollars off, so you could usually walk off with a brand-new movie for around $15. Nowadays, I can’t walk off with a brand new Blu-Ray for under $25 the week of release. Make it 4K and push that number up to $30. And happen to miss the opening week price? Well, add another $5 or $10 to the total. Then those sweet Scream Factory releases? $35 at minimum. Sure, there are some exceptions to the rule, and it is a bit more understandable that independent companies such as them would put out more expensive discs. But, on average, we’re paying nearly $10 more than we were just ten years ago on discs.
Even bargain bins have gotten to be so much more niche. The Walmart bargain bin is relegated to mostly simple 480p DVDs versus the days of countless $5 Blu-rays. How else are people supposed to easily access Captain Ron and The Addams Family? As collecting physical media becomes more and more niche and geared towards collectors, companies start to get greedy all in the name of the almighty dollar. Since the general public is no longer buying, they’re instead releasing for collectors. So now a small market is expected to prop up an entire industry. We’re getting the same re-releases we would have gotten years ago, yet now at a premium. Just look at the recently announced Drive 4K Steelbook whose price tag is a whopping $35.
So what can be done about this? Really, we just need to be speaking with our wallets. We can’t allow Physical Media collecting to become what so many others have: a collector’s nightmare. Just look at the sweet Crow Steelbook that released a month ago which almost immediately went out of stock when it went up for pre-order and flooded eBay at absurd prices. They released far fewer copies than they should have and, rather than printing more, decided to increase their value through resellers. (To note, The Crow’s disc is being put out by Paramount Pictures. Drive’s by Sony Pictures. Neither has a ton of extras, like you’d find on a label like Arrow Video or Scream Factory. So what’s going on here?) Any shoe collector will tell you how terrible this practice is and we don’t need it in physical media. So make sure to identify companies that are doing it, and avoid them in the future. Teach them a lesson and vote with your wallet.
Literally everything is too expensive.
So now a small market is expected to prop up an entire industry.
This is basically the entire problem right here, and I don’t know if there’s a solution. The demand for physical media has collapsed. The market has shrunk to a fraction of what it was, and it probably won’t ever recover.
Yes.
I think studios should stop money grabbing by releasing films in tins. I’m looking forward to seeing Twister in 4K, but the UK release is listed for October and is a whopping £45 because it is in a [Collector’s Edition Steelbook].
I wouldn’t mind the steelbook releases as a collector style item as long as there’s still a base (hopefully UHD) release that’s reasonably priced. Unfortunately with streaming I think they’re assuming most people will just skip physical media and so they’re just trying to capitalize on the collector market while skipping general releases.
That’s a good point - are there examples of that?
I think the example of Drive in the OP was only released in UHD as a steelbook release
You can buy the 4k in thee UK - it was released by Second Sight Films in May 2022. It seems to be a standard £25 at most shops but if you wait for the sales I bet you could get a 2 for £30 (a fairly standard 4k sales point). So there’d be room to save a bit more cash if you waited.
I stand corrected. Must just be out of stock at the places I checked
Second Sight are a UK boutique Blu-ray distributor, so it may be difficult to find where you are.
Don’t look into anime if you think these prices are bad.
Anyway, I almost always buy used. But there are some things still absurdly priced for seemingly no reason.
Nice post!
Thanks, Blaze. 👍
So make sure to identify companies that are doing it, and avoid them in the future. Teach them a lesson and vote with your wallet.
Yes, teach them a lesson, thereby collapsing the market for Blu-ray and 4K entirely. I hope you still like DVD, because 75% of this tiny market prefers it.
Just look at the recently announced Drive 4K Steelbook whose price tag is a whopping $35.
It does seem to be the business model - they release a higher priced limited edition that likely cover the costs of getting it into 4k and adding HDR and all the other bells and whistles, then a cheaper standard release later on. So it’s either the collector mentality or FOMO that drive these early sales.
I’d say we’re ready for the next generation of home media - I don’t want optical anymore. Give me some sort of SD Card, that I can store in a storage wallet that doesn’t take up half my house and can’t get scratched. I’m sure they’re going to want some sort of new DRM scheme, so change up the media format at the same time! SD Card, Isolinear data rod etc
There are many reasons we do not use SD cards/flash memory devices for movies and TV:
- SD cards have extrenely slow read rates compared to optical.
- Optical discs are a much more reliable data storage format than flash memory devices. SD cards and other flash memory devices need to be used every few months, or the electric charge will wear out, causing the data to be unreadable. On the other hand, a professionally-pressed Blu-ray disc can theoretically last 50-100 years.
- SD cards are more expensive to manufacture than optical discs.
that I can store in a storage wallet that doesn’t take up half my house
That doesn’t even make sense. Switch game cards are way smaller than any optical disc, but the game cases aren’t. And there are already CD cases/bags where you can store 100 or more discs in a relatively small space if you’re ready to ditch the cases.
The number of optical discs that have been gouged sliding around in those shitty wallets back in the day. I wouldn’t trust a fragile medium in one
I’ve started buying movies a bit, mostly cheap older movies at the buybacks. A film I love had the 4k blueray release for $10 so I grabbed it and I feel my eyes have been opened. So now I have the 4k bug but a DVD wallet. Hard times.
I love 4K and I know how you feel. I’m very much a second hand / eBay kind of buyer unless there’s a film that I love so much, I will buy brand new, but that’s very few and far between. Furthermore, I’ve been lucky enough to even find a few 4K films in charity shops! Well, two, The Revenant and a double pack of the first two Jurassic World films.
That’s two more than me. It seems to be largely DVDs down my way.
I travel the country for work and always try and visit the local charity shops. Problem is, the blurays I find are usually the same ones!
It’s like visiting every charity shop in town and finding a copy of Hot Fuzz on DVD in every single one. I think it’s charity shop law.
I would say that you can always pirate the 4K versions but with a DVD wallet you likely can’t afford the storage space needed for huge remuxes and I’m only half joking.
Main reason DVD still outsells Blu-ray