In recent years, Blockbuster hasn’t been doing so great as earlier this year, they closed a total of 300 U.S. stores and today its parent company Dish has finally closed the final 300 stores that were still open in the U.S.
“This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment,” said Dish CEO Joseph Clayton in a statement released by the company today. Both Blockbuster’s retail stores and their disc-by-mail service will shut down by early January 2014. This doesn’t necessarily mean Blockbuster is out of the video space completely as their Blockbuster Now online streaming video service will continue to be available in the U.S. with Dish also retail licensing rights to the Blockbuster brand.
If you’ve been following Blockbuster’s slow downward spiral, today’s news is probably one you’ve been expecting for quite some time as online streaming video services have made visits to the local video rental store obsolete. Blockbuster launched its Blockbuster Now earlier this year, although how it stacks up against competitors like Netflix and Hulu Plus is yet to be seen as these services have been completely dominating their space for several years now. Hopefully Blockbuster can continue living on in the coming years, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t.
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