Best Buy has officially begun its process of ditching physical media, according to new reports this week that say the retailer has begun removing Blu-rays and DVDs—a format that it helped popularize during its inception in the late 1990s—from all of its retail stores across the nation.
Best Buy has started removing all physical media and displays today pic.twitter.com/BRbMdQKTB2
— Physical Media President (@PhysicalMedia_) January 2, 2024
“The consumer electronics retailer plans to phase out its DVD and Blu-ray sales by early 2024 — with physical movies set to be sold in-stores and online as they are today through the holidays,” Best Buy told the AP in October.
“To state the obvious, the way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today than it was decades ago,” the retailer added in a statement that was also picked up by Variety. “Making this change gives us more space and opportunity to bring customers new and innovative tech for them to explore, discover and enjoy.”
Video games will reportedly continue to exist in Best Buy stores, but DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K UHD Blu-rays won’t be available from the retailer, neither from its brick-and-mortar locations, nor online.
The Digital Bits, which is credited as being the first website to break the news, had this to say in early October:
The fact that Best Buy is discontinuing physical media sales in their retail locations should come as no surprise; anyone who’s visited a Best Buy store location on a Tuesday recently will be all too aware that the retailer’s disc sections keep getting moved around and have gotten smaller and smaller. Our own experience here at The Bits is that some store locations don’t even bother to stock new-release titles on the sales floor anymore—even their exclusive ones. More than once, in their Southern California locations, I’ve had to ask for the titles and wait while a clerk checks the storeroom.
As of this writing, Best Buy continues to offer over 46,000 Blu-rays and other types of physical media through its website.
The collection includes over 100 exclusives, such as the Avatar 4K SteelBook and The Twilight Saga 4K SteelBook, which are available for $41.99 and $79.99, respectively.
Walmart, Amazon, and Target are now considered the nation’s largest retail sellers of Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K titles following Best Buy’s exit.