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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
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iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
Release Date: September 20, 2009
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Release Date: April 22, 2009
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Discover New Music

  • Modern Lovers

    • 10 out of 10
    • Modern Lovers
    • This timeless masterpiece is little known, but it has inspired almost as many bands as The Modern Lovers' own inspiration -- and only slightly better known -- The Velvet Underground & Nico.

  • The Life Pursuit

    • 8 out of 10
    • Belle & Sebastian
    • The Life Pursuit is a sort of Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. You get Belle & Sebastian's peanut butter (its wistful, often irresistible pop) dipped in a 'Have A Nice Day!' and glam 70s chocol

  • Pressure Chief

    • 6 out of 10
    • Cake
    • Pressure Chief, Cake's latest album, didn't immediately grab me. In fact, it took perhaps half a dozen listens before I started truly enjoying it. Any

  • Physical Graffiti

    • 10 out of 10
    • Led Zeppelin
    • This album bears every flavor of genius from the five records that came before. It is, I believe, the band's finest. With Physical Graffiti, Zep came raging back to their musical home territory -- har
  • Priest = Aura

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Church
    • Another of my all-time favorites, Priest = Aura is one of those rare albums where every song is simply fantastic, and a testament to how good pop-rock can be.

      Each song immediatel

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News

Warner’s Experiment with Reduced Price Blu-ray Titles Has a Catch

Warmer Home Video will experiment with a retailer rebate program in the fall that will result in the cost of some popular movie titles on Blu-ray selling for as little as US$17, according to Video Business. However, Warner doesn’t want customers to get too accustomed to the idea.

The rebate program allows retailers to order certain titles at current costs, but receive a rebate when the disc is sold. The retailer costs should end up at about US$11 and the retail cost at about $17 to $20.

Titles include: The Fugitive, Enter the Dragon, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, The Aviator, Road Warrior and Swordfish.

An unnamed source disclosed the corporate thinking: the plan is to entice customers to make some low cost purchases and boost the Blu-ray business without devaluing the Blu-ray format as a whole.

"They are trying to get this software business going," said one source. "But it’s really a double-edged sword. We’re happy to be able to offer it, but it can be a slippery slope. Consumers might get in the mindset that they want everything discounted. If that becomes the case, we will shorten the life of Blu-ray just like we did with DVD."

The key phase was "we will shorten." One interpretation of that statement is that next generation disc technologies are being developed and if, in an explosion of competition, Blu-ray titles drop like they did for a $5 DVD, the movie industry will try to roll out a new, more expensive, more profitable technology to make all the Blu-ray titles obsolete -- and force a start of the technology upgrade cycle all over again.

With the debilitating Blu-ray/HD DVD war still fresh in memory, that kind of strategy and thinking attributed to Warner may leave a bad taste in the mouth of many videophiles.

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