The Consumerist reports today that while Blu-Ray sales are indeed up this year by seventy-two percent over sales from this time last year, they haven’t caught on so much so that they’d be considered hot trade-in items at Gamestop. The articles talks about how several Gamestops when asked about trading in Blu-Ray Movies for money or in-store credit, simply stated that they won’t do it right now.

Gamestop’s reluctance might have something to do with all the UMD Movies most stores across the country are still stuck with years after the last UMD Movie made a profit for anybody involved. Next time you go to a Gamestop, particularly during any advertised sales period, look around and most likely you’ll find a small section where they have UMD Movies still shrink wrapped on sale for a few dollars each, a far cry from the twenty to thirty dollars they were going for back in 2005 during UMD’s glory days.

I know there’s an article from back then somewhere on the net…lemme see if I can find…AHA! Found it! A vintage N’Gai Croal Sony article from 2005 on how the UMD Format would give the movie industry a helping hand. And here, here’s a quote that helps what I’ve been talking about for two paragraphs come together. N’Gai states in that vintage article that, “Studio heads love the fact that the PSP reaches a younger, mostly male audience that spends more on games than it does on movies; since even specialty retailers like GameStop carry UMD movies, their titles are on an equal footing.”

Look what happened in just over two years or so. Gamestop can’t even give their stock of UMD Movies away. The only UMD movie I can recall never dropping in price was Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and the reason that one kept getting purchased is right there in the title of the damn thing! It’s easy to see why Gamestop would be hesitant to keep offering movies along with games if the vast, vast majority of their patrons only see the store as a place to get one specific kind of product. Not only that, but a good number of Gamestop customers probably have some form of Netflix in their home entertainment ensemble somewhere. They don’t want to have to deal with yet another movie format when they can legally view “good-enough” quality movies without ever having to leave the house. – The Ben