Best Buy + CinemaNow = sitting in a tree
Best Buy will load up CinemaNow software on internet-connected consumer electronics sold at the company's retail stores. That includes computers, portable media players, Blu-Ray players, set-top boxes, mobile phones, and internet-connected television sets.
Customers that purchase one of these items will be able to rent or buy videos from a catalog with about 22,000 titles. Movie purchases typically run between $10 and $20, while TV shows are $1.99 per episode. Movie rentals typically go for $2.99 to $3.99.
The move should give Best Buy and CinemaNow a much stronger foothold in the digital media space. CinemaNow already offers a pretty compelling user experience, allowing you to download a video and watch it on up to three devices. But the fact that virtually every consumer electronics device that Best Buy sells that can run the software soon will, means that CinemaNow is about to become a much bigger name in digital media, and that could help the companies take on Apple's iTunes and Amazon's video on demand services.
Best Buy is expected to roll out the new service early next year.
I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before.
Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jesus said 1:48PM on 11-03-2009
The problem I see is that because consumers are so used to getting junk software along with their PC's, they may be inclined to ignore anything Best Buy adds.
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Mike Comier said 2:18PM on 11-03-2009
Funny you should mention this rolling out early next year. I recently started working for Geek Squad and had to optimize a computer (we do a bunch of different system tweaks and clean out trial-ware etc.). The other day I spotted "Best Buy Cinema Now" on a machine which I had never heard of before. Maybe they're rolling out the software now so they'll have people at home with ready for the service when it launches?
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