This is the same thing we saw with VHS being phased out back in DVDs glory days.
Its the natural order of things, I think bestbuy also realizes that with the number of titles that are being released on bluray as a combo pack including the dvd its kind of pointless to carry the stand alone dvd as well.

Nice, but I'm pretty sure the higher resolution came first.

The Best Buy in South Austin did the switch around. Movies to where the music was and vice versa. Too me, it looked like they reduced all movies, DVD and Blu. They didn't even have the new Superman/Batman animated film on either format the day of release. Then I read an article on The Consumerist which said the CD section at Best Buy was shrinking, but I am certain the one I saw at the South Austin store looked larger than before!

VHS wasn't as 'big' as DVD was. Reducing DVD/CD simply means optical discs are on there way out. Blu-rays are not selling that well to remove DVDs completely. And with such a limited amount of titles, they would never go all Blu

Too bad, I love going to best buy and writing down titles to buy online later.

While it's a little sad to think about, this impacts me very little as 90% of my media purchases are online. I used to go every few wks, but the last 3-4 yrs my retail shopping has dropped off the charts. Despite being one of the bigger stores, they just can't compete with the prices, selection and convenience of Amazon, etc.

I found it interesting that one of the quotes in the article said:

instead of:

I'll bet that article's writer used "DVDs" as a generic term for "packaged media".

I think this is a great great thing.

I dont believe i ever said that VHS was as big as DVD was though.
But now that you mention it my local bestbuys and circuit citys and walmarts always had a decent amount of space that was for VHS titles, once DVD became mainstream thanks to player prices dropping to the levels that the bluray prices are now at, VHS shrunk smaller and smaller.

also at this point in its life span bluray is pretty close to where dvd was in the number of availble titles for sale.

I am just saying that now especially with so many studios releasing new releases as combo packs, why carry the stand alone dvd version of the movie(please note iam strickly talking about titles that are being released as combos), when they can just carry the bluray dvd combo which both dvd and bluray users can both use.

I think the real question that needs to be asked is when is this site going to change its name to BDTalk
I mean if it started as Laserdisc, Beta or VHSTalk are we to believe that name would have remained through now?

It's sort of hard for me to tell because they've remodeled the store and they change the layout from time to time as well, but I'd say that the current layout gives the PS3, Wii, and 360 games about the same amount of shelf space as the PS2 games had a few years ago.

Of course, there are a lot of things like Rock Band and Guitar Hero boxes (across three different platforms, no less) that take up a lot of space, but it looks to me like they gave some of the old video game real estate to blu-ray discs and a big Apple/Mac kiosk.

Just going by rough estimates, the DVD section is about half the size it was five years ago. Looks like they gave somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the CD section to phones, the video game section is about 50% smaller than it was before (I'd say they stock about a third as many actual games than they did at the height of the PS2's popularity, with the rest of the space now given to hardware and accessories). The blu-ray section has been growing, eating into the DVD section and it appears that it took a row away from Wii/PS3 over the past year or two.

According to Nielsen VideoScan, a record 52% of the total disc sales of Iron Man 2 came from the Blu-ray editions (not including sales at Walmart). Here is the top four with Blu-ray sales percentages:

Iron Man 2: 52%
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse: 32%
Get Him to the Greek: 28%
Frozen: 19%

(This from Blu-ray.com http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5265)

There was a Sony rep in my BB a couple weeks ago to show off Move. I didn't see a single person try it out and everyone walked around her to get to the games.

When even Sony starts holding regular sales of their current-model BDP-S370, BDP-S470, and BDP-S570 models at their own Sony Style online store, small wonder why Best Buy is considering cutting back on their DVD displays.

Besides, online streaming is not as viable an option as it seems. Due to monthly download caps and relatively slow broadband speeds of US-based Internet Service Providers, unless you have a really fast connection you can forget about streaming movies from the likes of Netflix, Amazon.com, Hulu, etc. This means for now here in the USA, if you want high-definition movies Blu-ray is the way to go.

I feel the same way. I remember thinking that I was going to only buy Blu-ray in special situations, but now with prices being competitive, I'm finding myself only buying DVDs rarely.

I'm buying more BDs than I thought I would be at this point as well. But for every film I buy on BD, there are 10 better films that are out on DVD and may never be on BD.

Same here, and the prices are what did it for me. Any time I can get HD for 2-3 dollars more in a lot of cases, or for about the SAME price in others...no brainer.

God bless those who stick with DVD however...it's how I make a living!

Ha! Same exact thing was happening at the local Fry's. They had stacks and stacks of Move games, and none of them were actually moving...

The 'ha! Blu-ray's winning!' people need to read the original article that the blogger based his post on. It seems fairly obvious it's talking about the DVD section in general and the reporter even refers to Blu-ray as a subclass of DVD. Jumping to the conclusion that Best Buy is planning to 'force' people to Blu-ray is quite a leap and statements like:

pretty much confirm the dude as an idiot. But yeah, my closest local store recently scaled back all media sections. Blu-ray took the smallest hit, but it shrunk, along with DVD, CD and game sections. I did note that they've put up a bunch of signs in those areas that say something like, "don't see what you want? Talk to a Best Buy rep and we can order any movie/album/game you want!" Maybe they're testing the waters with only offering huge sellers in stores and having the rest be available on order.

That's probably part of it. At BestBuy.com they've expanded in-store pickup by adding a Ship-to-Store option. You can't do it with CDs, DVDs, Blus or video games yet, but I can imagine that option being there in the near future.

Hopefully that ship to store feature (like walmart.com) doesnt mean bestbuy is going to eventually stop matching their online price in store.

Really? That's awesome! It's not like Amazon.com exists Ahh Best Buy.

One of Best Buy's main reasons for carrying DVDs at all was that they were a good way to get customers into the stores, and then tempt them into buying more big ticket items. If their selection drops, that means I'll be going in there a lot less.

I just got back from the local bestbuy i frequent, to pick up the robocop trilogy. and its totally changed since i was there on sunday to pick up the Toy story iron pack.the DVD section is pretty much down to 3 rows for movies and one for tv. But the bluray section is actually 1 and 1/2 rows bigger than it was. and pretty much all the end caps were bluray except one that was with disney dvd halloween double pack, And the cd section is down to just a 3 rows with the soundtrack and classical secctions gone completely.

Having said the bluray section is now the first thing you see when you walk in the front door and its facing directly towards you as you enter where as before it was at a angle and you had to walk around the corner to get to them.

If what others are guessing is correct and bestbuy is heading more towards having them order instore for you the items you request it will probably mean the end of price matching bestbuy.com prices as well as there probably being fewer sales(if any) on the items that they have to place orders for you.