Video rental kingpin Blockbuster has acquired the movie download company Movielink. The deal includes Movielink’s treasured exclusive deals with major studios (Paramount, MGM, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros) making this a potentially very lucrative acquisition for Blockbuster.

Considering also that the cost of the acquisition is rumoured to have been below the $50 million mark, Blockbuster may find that its future gains in digital downloads betray this deal as something of a bargain.

The Movielink service is only available in America and has only been compatible with Microsoft Windows thus far, drawbacks that Blockbuster would do well to address before making the service available via the official Blockbuster site.

With on demand broadband video slowly ceasing to be the exclusive preserve of the internet pirate (shiver me timbers etc…) and major industry players starting to make a move, it is surely only a matter of time before high street film rental outlets go the way of the dodo.

[Via NewTeeVee]

Related Ad

Rent DVDs from BlockBuster - Free Trial

Have Something To Say?