I would have reported this several days ago, but the sad news of Robin Williams passing away took a toll on me and I feel behind on my writing. Thankfully writing is very therapeutic for me, so after I wrote an obituary of sorts for one of my favorite actors I took a few days off and resumed work. I also remembered that on Monday the Digital Bits more or less confirmed some of our fears:
On a related note, Disney seems to have backed away from their commitment to Blu-ray 3D, releasing only select theatrical 3D titles on the format, often only in Europe or in the U.S. as retail exclusives. Probably, this is the studio attempting to save a buck and get its retail partners to pay for 3D when they can. This is a shame, because while we know the audience for Blu-ray 3D is limited, it is a very dedicated enthusiast audience eager for more BD3D content.
This is disappointing but not really surprising. The lack of BluRay 3D releases from Disney is the main reason I started to put this site together in the first place. So now we pretty much have confirmation that Disney - who used to be one of BluRay 3D's biggest supporters - is backing off on the format. Of course, it should be noted that Disney is likely doing this to save a few pennies. They have also discontinued the popular combo packs for most of their movies. So no more DVD's in the BluRay sets. Just a digital copy. Oh, and while those digital copies used to be redeemable at iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu, starting with "Muppets Most Wanted" it appears you can only redeem them on one service: Disney Movies Anywhere. You can certainly see the Mouses attempt to control the movies you "buy" these days.
Let's get back to BluRay 3D though. Bill Hunt thinks that another reason Disney has cooled on the releases is that Disney wants to sell the 3D version as retailer exclusives to get someone else to foot the bill for the disks. That actually sounds like a really nice dream because it would be better than nothing. But no, I don't think this is the case. If it was then they are doing a VERY poor job at this! This is the sort of thing Amazon and Best Buy get into bidding wars over. Yeah, it's a niche product, but if you're the only retailer who has the product then you officially own a monopoly on that whole market for that movie. Who wouldn't want to have that for "Frozen?" We'll be speaking more about this in the near future. For now though, start writing those letters to Disney and continue flooding their Facebook and Twitter page.
Just as a note -- Disney Movies Anywhere links to several other services, including Vudu, Play and iTunes. Buying from any one of those services once they're linked unlocks on all of them.