Disney Halting Backlog Physical Media Releases (Including Fox Titles)

[Nightmare Asylum]

Wow I hate this.

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/080720-1600

[Stitch]

Comes as a surprise to nobody. Disney is well known for doing this. Just a shame it now covers all Fox's output and catalogue.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Some interesting comments from this guy:

It's easy to just go after Disney for this sort of thing but I fully expect more studios to start phasing out 4K discs and physical copies more generally. Why only get money from a consumer once when they can put that on a streaming service and charge you monthly for access?

Obviously Disney treating the Fox back catalog like a burden rather than something to celebrate is a much, much bigger issue but if you think it's just Evil Disney Being Evil you're fooling yourself.

The end-game for IP-holding companies is that you never actually own anything, you just lease it from them and lose access when you decide to stop. And there are severe repercussions for film preservation and access as a result of that.

It's very interesting that just 20 years ago these companies were petrified of the Internet and lobbied for strong IP protection laws and now that they can use it to get funds in perpetuity they're blowing up the very model they went to the mat to protect.

https://twitter.com/Learnonaut/status/1292880675863965697

Kind of like what Adobe did with their subscription service.

[Evanus]

Yeah, this sucks. Probably won't get any Alien releases anymore, I guess. f**kin Disney...

[Nightmare Asylum]

Yeah, this is definitely representative of the industry at large. It just happens to be starting here with Disney, as so many other recent massive shifts have lately.

Media going completely subscription based, being reduced to whatever "content" is currently on so and so streaming service for such and such monthly fee, just sounds like a terrible direction for putting stories out there, and it is only going to get worse and worse as time goes on.

[Shasvre]

As someone who loves physical (for various reasons), this really sucks.

[judge death]

f**k you disney, as I have said back when xbox one was presented on E3 2013: start having online demands to play the games and only digital sales: Im going. Going digital and losing the right to own something isnt something I will accept. One shouldnt have to rebuy the same movie for all devices or every few years or in the end as microsoft and disney wants: you can only rent the movies/games.
Material releases all the way for me, and have the option to own it rather than to depend on servers being up or disney control if I can watch the movie or not.

[Nightmare Asylum]

I guess I should probably upgrade my copies of Prometheus and Covenant to 4K releases, before the "Vault" strikes.

[Voodoo Magic]

This was going to happen anyway with every studio sadly. Blu-Ray unfortunately has never surpassed DVD sales, and the Blu-Ray physical media sales is shrinking every year. This is why Samsung, who was the #1 manufacturer in Blu-Ray Players in the World discontinued their players last year. All of them. They see the decline and the grim future of physical media. And thats just blu-ray. Then there's the 4K niche.

It might take another 5-10 years but sadly digital ownership and streaming is our future it seems.

[judge death]

This was going to happen anyway with every studio sadly. Blu-Ray unfortunately has never surpassed DVD sales, and the Blu-Ray physical media sales is shrinking every year. This is why Samsung, who was the #1 manufacturer in Blu-Ray Players in the World discontinued their players last year. All of them. They see the decline and the grim future of physical media. And thats just blu-ray. Then there's the 4K niche.

It might take another 5-10 years but sadly digital ownership and streaming is our future it seems.

While blurays in ps4 and xbox one sell more than ever and are in ps5 and the next xbox.

[Kimo]

Still need to pick up Alien in 4K and can only dream for Aliens to get a 4K transfer. I'm just glad I got to see Aliens at my local cinema last month.

[Voodoo Magic]

This was going to happen anyway with every studio sadly. Blu-Ray unfortunately has never surpassed DVD sales, and the Blu-Ray physical media sales is shrinking every year. This is why Samsung, who was the #1 manufacturer in Blu-Ray Players in the World discontinued their players last year. All of them. They see the decline and the grim future of physical media. And thats just blu-ray. Then there's the 4K niche.

It might take another 5-10 years but sadly digital ownership and streaming is our future it seems.

While blurays in ps4 and xbox one sell more than ever and are in ps5 and the next xbox.

Huh? There are Blu-Ray's inside the Xbox and PS4? Let me crack mine open!!

Blu-Ray discs sales are down mon, year after year, even if your game console plays them. It's the digital revolution mon! Physical media keeps shrinking mon. The kids like their digital!

[Kimo]

This is true you only need to go to the supermarket to see the small pathetic section for blu-rays and even a tiny tiny section within the blu-rays for 4K. DVDs are still outnumbering them. Also u only have to see how bare bones Blu-ray and 4K disc are these days. They commentary and bonus material are lacking. Man I miss the days when you had hours a bonus content on dvds.

[judge death]

Direct from sonys official site for ps4 and ps5:
Media   Blu-ray, DVD


But yes you are right and I cant understand how people are so open to let others decide what and if they can watch a movie rather than properly own it and have it forever. :/

[TC]

Curse you, James Cameron!

You've had 15 years to get The Abyss out on blu-ray, 5 years for the UHD. Now all I'm left with is that crap DVD in letterboxed 4:3.

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!

https://www.filmstories.co.uk/features/true-lies-the-abyss-and-the-blu-ray-4k-problem/

TC