It wasn't long ago that
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was packing theaters, but given how quickly things hit DVD and Blu-ray these days we're surprised to learn this one won't be flinging vermicelli to disc until just after the holidays. Fear not carb-lovers: similar to the
Hancock deal last year, new purchasers of internet-capable Sony
TVs and
Blu-ray players will be receiving one free stream of the film starting on December 8; that's nearly a full month ahead of the retail release. The stream will be in 720p and will allow full control during 24 hours. What if you've already purchased your Sony setup? The company is happy to extend the streaming offer to you as well -- so long as you don't mind paying a mere $24.95. Yes, a one-time 720p rental that costs as much as a Blu-ray. That's value.
posted Nov 9th 2009 7:44AM
Can't wait!
Can't wait to throw your money away?
Hurry, then.
I'm hoping that you were being ironic?
is this porn?
@OneLove
Only if you're into that.
Would getting meatballed be similar to getting teabagged? If so then it's definitely hardcore. Even if you don't considered it porn, Sony will be raping you so you'll be the one in the porn!
and if hardly anyone pays this price, we can just simply blame it on pirates!
Picture price doesn't match up, is it $24 or $29?
Whoops, it's $24.95. Fixed the pic.
These studios are guilty of idiotic pride in their work. That is their great sin. A movie ticket is nowhere near worth $10.50 at a theater, nor is an already ran movie worth more than a few bucks on demand.
The hubris of these people. If anything, the price of content should be falling... Quality of movies certainly has been falling. If the want to stem the tide of piracy, how about treating the consumer not like either a criminal or a sap?
Interesting idea that the value doesn´t fit what you deliver though.. is there any substantial reasoning behind it? Don´t take me wrong but I pay here about 6 to 8 euro for a movie in the cinema while these movies I can easily play at my home cinema together with 4 or 6 friends at a neat screen. Now throw in 6x8 euro its 48 euro while a stream only costs me 17 euro. Now... if a movie gets released at a stream for this price at the same time as it plays in the cinema I´m more then willing to pay this much for it but the catch is imo that this price is pretty much equal to a BR Disc which I can play inifinite times. This basically messes up the demanded price. So imo the price isn´t that bad but it should be priced a bit below the actual physical disc-price to be reasonble. That new buyers get a small promo over excisting users iba since thats what a promo is about. You can´t demand everytime as excisting user that you miss out on the promo´s. There is an easy solution keep buying new tele´s.
In a generally free society, something like a movie ticket is worth what people are willing to pay for it.
You're right, a movie ticket isn't worth 10.50, but it isn't the studios that are charging that much to see a movie. That would be the theaters. Studios have for a long time now wanted to try and do something called "Day and Date" release. This is where the same day the movie hits the theaters, it is also released on DVD, blu ray, on demand, rental, and any other format. By doing this the studios would only need to pay for advertising once. Think of how many millions they spend advertising a movie before it hits theaters, and then how many more millions they have to spend when it is released on formats because people have forgotten about the movie. By only doing this once they would save a lot of money. The theater systems are the only ones blocking this because, well if this happens, they are dead.
Studios lose money on most movies they make, ecspecially in the theaters. They are the ones that have to pay to make all the copies of prints, and they are the ones that have to distribute them to theaters. Studios bank on having a few blockbuster hits a year - this is where they make their dough. Most movis today are being funded by moneys that studios are making off of their other divisions, such as TV networks. This is also why everything now days has merchandising. How many movies have you seen have toys that come with Happy Meals?
Take a family of four, lets say you want to go to a movie on a friday night. This is going to cost you near 45 dollars in tickets alone, add in any popcorn, drinks, candy and you're easily paying 75 dollars. That's 75 dollars, or at least 45, for just a couple of hours of entertainment. Why do theaters wonder why no one comes to theaters anymore. This is why people will buy the movie on dvd/blu ray. It still costs at least half the price and they get to watch it as many times as they want.
The day of the theater is over. They are trying to re-invent themselves with 3D, as most people don't have 3D tvs and the theater is the only place where they would be able to see it in 3D. I personlly believe 3D is a complete gimmick until we have good 3D without the need for glasses.
You lost me at "sin". Companies don't sin - people sin. This is a free market capitalistic society - companies get what people are willing to pay. Yes, it's a rip off, but it's the market's job to straighten them out by not paying for it (as opposed to religious zealots).
It's all about looking for the deals. I'm not sure about other places, but at least in Arizona AMC Theaters does $5 showings every Fri-Sun before noon.
Theaters are not on the way out, just the model of giant cineplex that only shows new releases. Look at the amazing Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX for example.
I think that a lot of chain theaters need to shape up or ship out. =/
That is crazy ... if you wanted to see it so bad you would have paid 1/2 that and see it in 3D in a huge theater .. Now $30 to keep the movie for good is still not a great deal as Amazon will have the 1080p BD version for less then that ,but at least i could kinda see that deal
Sony never seems to disappoint (sarcasm). $25 for a 24 hour rental?!?! Really Sony?!?!
They have fallen out of touch with consumers.
That's about a $ an hour. Go to the movie fot the price you'll have a bigger screen.
Their rental service on the PS3 can be frustrating too. I rented a movie and made the mistake of playing it while downloading - cause my wife an I wanted to watch a movie then (not later on). Well, it would play 30 seconds and stop then repeat. Very annoying, so we had to stop the movie to let it finish downloading. Of course we didn't want to sit staring at a blank screen forever, and moved on to watching a disc. The next night we went to watch the movie we rented & had got to see a few minutes of to find it had expired. Lesson learned - don't press play unless you know you will be able to watch it in that 24 hour period. Watching while downloading is a bad bet.
This is simply just ridiculous.
That's what I love. Sony (and most companies now) expect loyalty from the customers while giving no loyalty to the customer.
is this the same company that offers a PSPgo for only 249 U$ DOLLAR$?
Ye$.
$i $eñor!
I think you mean a P$P then.
Does this include us PS3 owners? It is made by Sony and it's a bluray player and it is connected to the internets.
Movie sucked anyway!!
if you think that's expensive, try taking 3 kids to see this movie with snacks for under $25
Or you could get your tubes tied and stop complaining.
...because fathers never take the kids out. /sarcasm
You do realize men have tubes, too, right? Just not Fallopian. Go learn yourself something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vas_deferens
I'll wait for the bluray copy
"Expensive with a Chance of Anal Rape" now showing in new Sony Dynamic Digital Proctology.
I think it's a cool idea. Get a group of friends together, have them pitch in a few bucks, and have movie night at home (if you have the right equipment for it). $25 seems like a pretty fair deal considering that two tickets to an evening show cost $18.50 where I live. Sure, you can wait for the Blu-ray, but maybe this is a step closer to viewing movies in your home just shortly after they're released in the theaters.
The problem here however is that the price isn't comparable to other services. Xbox Live has been offering some movies on their service before they even come out in theaters and is only asking $15 for an HD rental. I agree that if you can get a group of friends to pitch in to watch a movie that it offsets the price some, (not to mention saving that money on gas and snacks) but it needs to be priced competitively. A rental should not cost as much as a full blu-ray nor cost a full $10 more than their most direct competitor.
Ah...I wasn't familiar with the Xbox Live service and its rental prices (PS3 owner). Good point. Hey, I'm a fan of lower prices!
Wow, WTF $OE?
Way to expensive for VOD, with the Blu-ray price just under $30.
This is how Sony spoil themselves!
I am entertained by how much Sony wants this technology to fail.
I'd rent it, but only if it were in 1,000,080p.
Really?
You paid what you thought the Sony device was worth when you got your device, and now they are offering an incentive for new adopters and you complain. Why, not because they don't make it available to you too, but because they make it available for even you at a premium over the rest of the population that will still have to wait until January.
Stop whining, and get off my lawn.
No, people are complaining because a 24 hour rental does not cost $25. Blockbuster never charged that much, nor Netflix, nor cable on-demand. Do I think it's a reasonable cost considering how people are now using post-theater and post-opening day options to bypass the cost of a movie night out, instead of rental being a rescue option for people trapped in by a storm, illness, etc.? Yes, especially since I think corporations can charge what they like because it's the consumer with his voting dollars who really sets the price in the end. But do I therefore see why people are complaining? And do I agree with them? Hell yeah.
Excellent point. We, as Sony product owners, get the exclusive privledge of being able to bend over as we purchase ridiculously overpriced content. We should be grateful that we get the opportunity to continue stupidly throwing money at a company that long ago lost touch with it's customers. Thanks, Sony!
I SMELL RIP OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF !
whatever analyst ran the numbers and decided it should be $25 should be shot. whatever PR guy signed off on charging $25 to rent a movie when movies can be rented for $2-$8 on demand should be shot. whatever corporate stratagist that thinks this will work needs to spruce up the resume. Sony is excellent for charging way too much for an average product..thinking the name Sony is justification.look at the vaio w netbook. perfectly average...nothing unusual or exciting. $200 more than the compitition. if they go bankrupt they deserve it in return for gross ineptness and mismanagement.
For that kind of money I can get numerous blu-ray discs delivered to my home combined with unlimited HD (SD for me, because Qwest sucks) streaming for a month from Netflix.
I wasn't a fan of the $4 stream rental. This is just funny.
$25 for a RENTAL!?!? You can buy the DVD for less than that when it comes out. How stupid do you need to be to waste $25 like that.
Probably, if you were to call their customer service and complain (threaten to cancel your service) they'll give it to you for free anyway. That's the same reason that I have the introductory price on my internet.
Why don't people really see what's going on here. This is Sony we're talking about. Blu Ray still isn't catching on like they want it to. By offering a movie rental priced slightly less than the Blu Ray they are in effect making the Blu Ray look like the better deal, hoping to push people over to Blu Ray. They don't want people to rent this for 25 bucks, they want people to buy the Blu Ray and are convincing them to buy it without them knowing it.
It's the same thing they did with the PSP Go. A crappier more expensive version to make the original look like a good deal so people buy it.
This article will be the punch line in someone's 'Why I embrace piracy' thesis.
Is there anyone, actually, who would pay that?
lmfao, what would you expect from sony. in general that wouldn't be bad for a family if you had a nice setup @ home, cheaper than going out. but ya really only 30 days prior to release date on dvd/blue ray, i'd rather just wait. netflixx ftw!
In this case? Sony = Stupid.
This is not a bad deal if its a brand new movie(not in dollar theater yet). Think about it lets say its a movie you actually want to see; some comedy(that you don't need the super size screen & 30 speakers to enjoy). You get a better picture quality. If you are like me you have a decent to good surround sound. And you are not watching it by yourself.
So if movie tickets are $12 in your city; ohh you pay an additional $8 dollars for popcorn and $6 for soda and $4 for candy.
Cost of Family of 4
$56
Movie Trip: $31(2x$9.50 Adults: 2x$6 Kids movie tickets), $25 (Large Popcorn, Large Soda, & Some Candy).
+Actually Seeing it on a massive screen.
$34
At Home: $25(Movie on Demand Thing), $1 (A couple bags of Microwave Popcorn), $4 (12 pack of Coke/Pepsi), and $4 (4- $1 Candies from Walmart/Grocery Store),
+ Not having to make the trip to a crappy mall or movie theater.
The math can be done many ways. My gal and I went to the movies last weekend. Cost for two tickets (first run movie) large popcorn and two sodas was $24. Outrageous in my opinion (especially because the movie was a flop), but still less than what Sony is asking to see it on a small screen. Sony doesn't even give me popcorn for that price.
Let's try it another way. Let's take a family of four to a matinée. After all, it is a family movie. Sony doesn't provide any popcorn, soda, or candy so let's not get any at the theater either. It still costs as much, or more, to rent the movie from Sony.
There may be cases where such an offer makes sense, but it's going to be the exception.
Now, I'm going to get silly:
http://www.pressenter.com/~theatre/now_showing.html
First run movie. Family of four for $10. Their soda and popcorn prices are along the same lines. Even with refreshments, it's going to be under $20.
Far from typical, but Sony can't compete with this? That's messed up.
I'm pretty confident that even hotels charge less for pre-run movies.
The last time they did this we got a copy of Hancock in the mail after the DVD release date . Are they sure this isnt the same deal, I know it doesnt say it but perhaps this is the same deal. Then it is worth it for sure.