Wal-Mart Ditches Its Movie Download Service.

It seems that even the world's biggest retailer can't have it all in the Digital Age.

According to Variety, Wal-Mart has ended its movie downloading service. The trade reports that the announcement was low-key, with only a brief posting on the retailer's website stating that the service was halted on December 21. Wal-Mart, which sells the most DVD's in the U.S., issued another statement on Friday, stating that movie downloads were stopped because Hewlett-Packard, which provided the infrastructure for the service, had decided to pull out. HP confirmed this and added that, "The market for paid video downloads has not performed as expected."

Additionally, Wal-Mart's digital rights management software allowed for a downloaded movie to played on only one computer or other mobile device.

The market for downloadable movies seems to have a sketchy future. Apple's online store iTunes appears to be the most successful movie download service so far, and Amazon's Unbox is one of the only other notable movie downnload provider. 

Date：2008-3-20　【Return】