Wal-Mart closed down its video download store after Hewlett-Packard decided to discontinue the technology that powered the store. Wal-Mart is reportedly not going to bother looking for another partner, thanks to the underwhelming performance of the video download store.
This isn't to say that there's no money to be made in online video distribution. But Wal-Mart is the single largest seller of DVDs in the US, so whatever the company was making in digital sales was probably small potatoes by comparison. That, and while you might think of Wal-Mart when you're looking for a place to get cheap retail goods, it's not really the first name that pops into our heads when we're thinking of places to find downloadable movies.
If you've already purchased movies from the Wal-Mart download store, you can play them as many times as you like on your current computer. But thanks to the magic of DRM, you'll lose them if you ever switch computers.
[via paidContent]
After three short months, sales of Disney movies through the iTunes Store have hit 1.3 million downloads, in addition to 20 million television show downloads. However, Paramount has been the only other movie studio that has joined Apple since October of 2006. Why? No one wants to upset colossal retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, which are responsible for the majority of DVD sales. But will these latest sales figures help convince other companies in joining the digital download game? Finanicial Times 
