iTunes Movie Prices on the way up!


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Ars Technica and other sites are reporting that things are about to change in the iTunes Movie Store. Studios such as 20th Century Fox have convinced Apple to pay a wholesale price of $15 per movie for their titles. The positive of the deal is supposed to be that this secures more support for things like iTunes optimized versions of feature films appearing on DVDs in retail stores (The recent “Live Free or Die Hard” 2-Disk edition included a Windows-DRMed digital version of the film that will only play on PCs and a few compatible devices).

While some may see this as a way for the iTunes store to bring in a new mix of popular movie titles – for me, it marks the beginning of the end for the iTunes Video store.

Why?

Because I don’t know about you, but I’m not paying $19.95 or more do download a “near DVD” quality copy of a feature film. No box art. No physical disk. No special features. No high definition. We’re supposed to pay the same price (or more in a lot of cases) for the privilege of downloading a feature film. We’re not getting the same quality, or the same amount of content, but that’s not supposed to matter.

iTunes already features movies that are WAY over priced in my opinion. For example – go search for any of the Star Trek feature films. They’re all $9.99. Now, go to a Wal-mart, Best Buy, or Circuit City – and the same movie is between $7.50 and $9.99 but comes with a second disk filled with hours of “making of” and bonus material.

I truly think a price increase in the iTunes video store is going to kill it. There’s just no reason to purchase a movie from there instead of online or in a brick and mortar store.

I sincerely hope that the long standing rumor of iTunes movie rentals appears in iTunes soon. In my opinion, its the only thing that’s going to keep the iTunes movie business up and running…


Kossi Adzo

Kossi Adzo is a technology enthusiast and digital strategist with a fervent passion for Apple products and the innovative technologies that orbit them. With a background in computer science and a decade of experience in app development and digital marketing, Kossi brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the Apple Gazette team.

4 Comments

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  1. Right on! You’ll never see me plunk down a single penny for any iTunes movie.

    Sorry, but for that money, I want a disc, a case, and a book. With iTunes, there are no tangible goods for sale, so why should we be expected to pay the price of tangible goods. Digital downloads are free money. One copy sitting on a server is making thousands of dollars for those corparate fat cats in hollywood. Nothing has actually been manufactured, so whay charge so much? You mean to tell me when I go to Besy Buy and buy a DVD, the case, disk and book are actually free, it’s the content that costs $20?

    Crazy, just crazy.

  2. I said the same thing about music, I want the physical album ect. But I’m buying more music in iTunes then in stores. Why? Because its disturbingly easy and cheap. If they raise the price of their video downloads to the same price as in stores even with all the extra content (ie bonus features) I still don’t think its worth it, hell even if it was HD its not worth it. The reason to make us buy video online is that its cheaper and fast, this isn’t the case. While I won’t say it will be the death of the iTunes video store, I think their sales won’t be as strong.

    However I think the reason Apple is doing this is #1 tv studios backing out is having an affect on them as much as we’d like to say its not. #2 they will get more content this way, studios will be willing to add a larger catalog now that they are getting a bigger piece of pie. Hopefully we can see sales suffering for movies already available with the price difference and Apple will pressure them into lowering it again but this time with the support of more studios and more videos.

    But who knows maybe this is all about a itunes plus for movies, pay slightly higher and get high def versions?

  3. I haven’t purchased any movies on iTunes……yet. I won’t as long as DRM keeps me from burning a copy to DVD. I am not going to buy a movie I can only use on my Mac (or in iTunes). What’s the point?